#MedCommsDay 2023
Meet Paris Hatton
Paris Hatton is a Scientific Director who is located in the UK. She has been here for nearly 4.5 years and has seen quite a lot of change in OPEN Health over that time, from team size to office locations, and even company name.
An interview with Paris Hatton, Scientific Director
In this interview, Paris shares her journey into the field of medical communications (Med Comms), strategies for effectively communicating complex concepts, and valuable advice for aspiring individuals, particularly those hoping to become scientific directors.
What motivated you to pursue a career in Med Comms, and what keeps you engaged and excited about your work?
Like a lot of people in the industry, I have always loved science — particularly relating to medicine and health. My background is in biochemistry, but I knew pretty early in my degree that a career in research was not for me. Instead, what I really enjoyed was learning about the underlying mechanisms of human health issues and how scientific and technological advances could intervene in these issues. So in comes Med Comms!
When I first chatted with a medical writer at a careers event, it felt like it was a job that had been designed for my interests — I get to learn all about advances in science and medicine, communicate about them and educate others, and not have to do any pipetting! That was 8 years ago, and I have never looked back. Every week is a new challenge, often in a new therapy area — getting to be a part of the team that develops solutions to those challenges is really exciting to me.
Are there any projects or campaigns of which you are particularly proud?
We recently worked with a client to develop a scientific narrative on how their drug impacts the central nervous system. We started with a bunch of data, ranging from tissue culture studies to animal studies, all the way up to large clinical trials in humans, which resulted in a huge amount of information. From there, we organized the data into a story, looking at how the findings ladder up from those preclinical studies to what we were seeing in humans.
We explored the receptors that were being activated and the subsequent brain chemistry that was altered, deconstructing the mechanisms that led to the eventual clinical outcomes. After a lot of hard work, we ended up with five key points that explained what was originally hundreds of pages of information.
What is your strategy for communicating complex scientific concepts and data to different audiences?
I love taking a complex scientific concept, breaking it down into its most basic parts, and assembling a logical story, and then enhancing that story with simple visuals and data. HCPs are busy people, so it is crucial we communicate in an efficient and engaging way!
I like to challenge myself to be able to communicate something in as few words as possible, and from there you build out the story for the audience at hand and tailor it to what interests them.
It is also always important to think of the “so what?” For anyone to take meaning from the work we deliver, they need to be able to understand not only the scientific concept and the data, but also what this means for them.
What advice would you give to someone aspiring to pursue a career in medical communications, particularly as a scientific director?
My main advice to someone considering a career in Med Comms, particularly as a scientific director, is to go for it! It is a very rewarding experience to work with clients and leading HCPs to craft scientific narratives, and then to guide the development of various tactics to explain that narrative.
Lean into that part of you that enjoys problem solving, stay abreast of updates in the therapy areas that interest you, and work really closely with your team so that you can see the broad picture while knowing that they know the detail.