The Effective Statistician - in association with PSI: Recent Episodes
Alexander Schacht and Benjamin Piske, biometricians, statisticians and leaders in the pharma industry
The podcast from statisticians for statisticians to have a bigger impact at work. This podcast is set up in association with PSI - Promoting Statistical Insight. This podcast helps you to grow your leadership skills, learn about ongoing discussions in the scientific community, build you knowledge about the health sector and be more efficient at work. This podcast helps statisticians at all levels with and without management experience. It is targeted towards the health, but lots of topics will be important for the wider data scientists community.
Why are we raving about this conference? Why is this the best conference I have been attending to? What are the other activities beside the conference itself?
This is a special episode while Benjamin and I talk about the upcoming PSI conference and what you can expect from it. This will be a face to face conference in Gothenburg, Sweden!
The FDA is developing a series of four methodological patient-focused drug development (PFDD) guidance documents to address, in a stepwise manner, how stakeholders can collect and submit patient experience data and other relevant information from patients and caregivers for medical product development and regulatory decision making.
In today's episode, we discuss the process with the FDA publishing a timeline of planned public workshops, draft guidance documents and final guidance documents for 4 documents, originally planned to finish in end 2021 and its objective to explore the factors that need to be considered when developing COA-based endpoints.
What is a DIGA? Why is Germany so important for DIGAs?
Nowadays, there are a couple of available apps being used in several countries that collect user information, such as heart rate combined with algorithms that calculate certain health risks that the user may be vulnerable to. What differentiates these apps from the apps listed in the DIGA registry?
In today's episode, Dr. Stefan Walzer and I discussed the goal of the Digital Health Application.
Why do companies want to develop new patient-reported outcomes? How does the process start when we want to develop a new questionnaire? What are the key areas to look into for understanding the quality of a PRO? What guidelines exist for developing new PROs?
In today's episode, Antoine and I answer these questions and more. E.g. we talk about the importance of calibrating the relevance of the existing items in the questionnaire and developing new ones in order to reach more accurate measurements resulting in good PROs.
What is medical affairs? Launch and Lifecycle? How has this area evolved over the last 2 decades? What is the current state across the industry in terms of the role of statistics in this space?
When there is one topic, which is really hot, it's causal inference. I've got in contact with it about 20 years ago when analysing observational studies and when nobody working on clinical trials would consider it. But now - after the introduction of the estimands framework - this becomes part of every statisticians toolkit. Today, we have one of the world leading experts in this field as a guest - Miguel Hernan. I'm talking with him about:
How can this help generate and analyze data to identify better strategies for the treatment and prevention of both infectious and noninfectious diseases?
The guest in this episode represents the sponsor of this show – Nigel Howitt – current chair of PSI.
In the modern workplace, conflict has become a difficult topic. After all, conflict is antithetical to teamwork, employee engagement, and a positive company culture. Or is it?
"No" is a sign of conflict and many avoid saying it by all means. But...
Why is saying no so hard? How do we say no in the right way? When should we say no?
Subgroup analyses in combination with data visualisation is one of the hottest topics I can think about. And it hits us as statisticians during our careers again and again.
We need to understand subgroups for efficacy reasons and safety reasons and it's a common question in terms of how consistent your drug works across the different subgroups. It gets even more complicated if you want to review it across multiple studies.
Publishing data is great, but we also want to measure the impact our work has beyond the additional entry in our CVs. During this episode, Mike and I discuss the tools Altmetric and Dimensions. These can help us to understand the reach and influence of clinical and scientific research beyond citations. Based on these, we can track the full journey, from idea to impact.
We touch on a number of interesting topics during the interview, including how Altmetric and Dimensions work together in uncovering this journey, but also the insights that can be gleaned from the kind of data the tools provide.
‘I get to sit in the middle of this wonderful web with both Dimensions data and altmetric and I pull the two things together. And together, I can create these translational maps of where research is going from the laboratory through to the hospital and into the broader population.’ - Mike Taylor
We leverage Real World Evidence in many different areas and there's are many different things that can go wrong with this.
In today's episode, Rachel and I will discuss the things that we would like to have known before we started working with RWE so stay tuned to avoid mistakes we made in the past.
How do you start your week? Do you just rely on yourself or do you use some tools to organise yourself?
learned a lot of productivity hacks from Michael Hyatt. I've listened a lot to his podcasts and I used some of his recommended tools to make my plans work such as the Full Focus Planner which is kind of a calendar and a to-do list together with goal setting tips and more.
There's a lot of community charity works we can all do but there is not a lot of work where we can maximise our impact by using our specific skills as programmers, as statisticians, and as data scientists.
What kind of leader do you want to be? What are the leadership principles?
I learned about the concept of leadership principles from Gary Sullivan and it helped me to better understand what kind of leader I want to be.
I've been working on RWE most of my career and the clinical trial data for a while now. And 20 years ago, we would have never thought about merging them together but there's a lot of opportunities if we do this.
The recent advances in analytical methods for combining evidence from RCTs and non-RCTs, and the development of new frameworks for the inclusion of RWE in HTA have provided a greater insight on how issues around RWE uncertainty can be dealt with when estimating treatment effects for new technologies.
This year's PSI conference will be face to face again.
I'm really excited for this. This is the best conference for statisticians that you can attend.
If you are working in health care industry, there is no other conference like this. Attend this conference and meet friends and create new social connections! And you submitting a poster for the conference would be best!
During my early years, I was overwhelmed by so many trainings, SOPs, and processes. Only after my later years I learned what quality is really about. Gary fundamentally helped me and many others have a very different and more insightful/helpful/easy perspective about this topic.
What are typical data science methods that we are not yet using enough? Which areas will become important in the future in terms of data science?
Data visualisation is one of my favorite topics and today, I'll be interviewing someone who has helped me understand about data visualisation for years.
Is it possible to align business focus and self development at the same time? How can we create clear department or company goals or relate these to our goals?
I've been in pharma for 19 years now. I worked in various areas mostly in late phase area - post regulatory approval and phrase 3. I worked in different big and mid-sized pharma companies and worked in local, European, and global organizations. I've seen a lot of things in different areas and I learned a lot what works and what didn't work so well in pharma. I have learned a lot and now I want to take the next step.
I want to impact the decision-making. I want to improve how we communicate with physicians, payers, and patients in a much better way. I want to help this area and I cannot do that in one company - so that's why I moved to a CRO: Veramed.
What is the Enneagram? How will it help me work more effectively or be less frustrated? Lots of statisticians are introvert and detailed oriented. Does this imply, they will be largely in specific Enneagrams?
Willene left the IT industry after 20 years and subsequently qualified as a Life Coach. She is a PCC (Professional Certified Coach), accredited by the ICF (International Coaching Federation). She's also an accredited Enneagram Practitioner and certified Genos Emotional Intelligence Practitioner.
Over the last years, leaders of statistical organisations across Europe are meeting each year to talk about how the community can be moved forward and other important topics affecting statisticians in the industry. In 2021 was another meeting and I'm talking with Chrissie Fletcher about some of the topics covered during this years meeting.
In our standard graphics, we usually present summary statistics only. The exception is the Kaplan-Meier plot showing also individual patients. Showing individual patients effectively tells us so much more about e.g. clusters, outliers, and extreme values.
Do you think, you have nothing to add to a statistical conference? Are you afraid of sharing your achievements? Do you wonder, why you should put in the effort on top of your day-to-day job?
All these thoughts and questions will be addressed in this episode with Paul Terrill, the chair of the scientific committee of PSI.
Beyond the questions above, we will also talk about the logistics and practical tips on how to submit your abstract and to become a speaker at next years conference.
Have you ever been stuck in moving something forward? Do you wonder why others seem to be able to cut through the bureaucracy more easily? Are you frustrated by the politics around you?
Olaf has a really interesting character. He is an IT guy and he went up through the ranks of different companies, had a great career and learned quite a lot about leadership. He was applying a lot of these learnings and now he's training others in that regard as he has his very own leadership program. I'm a participant and have benefited a lot.
One day, we agreed to discuss the 4 pillars of boosting your career. He helped me sharpen my thoughts and here's the result!
What is Statistical Engineering (SE)?
How did the idea of Statistical Engineering come about?
Is SE an idea and a practice, or is it a profession, or both?
How does SE compare to the role/profession of “statistician” and/or “data scientist”?
Today, I have an interview with Margaret Gamalo, about how to combine a controlled arm with real world evidence data, a really hot topic.
Also, Margaret has been sharing her knowledge for a long time and has gained lots of opportunities this way. Helping others will help you in the long-run. We discuss this aspect in the episode as well.
Are you overwhelmed by work? Do you feel like being constantly under time pressure?
As I’m talking with colleagues in nearly all organizations, there seems to be an overall increase in workload, shorter timelines, a reduced number of people to help, and also an increase in complexity of the projects.
This leads to the breakdown of the system.
There’s some interesting research by a German mathematician, who wanted to understand why the German railway system sometimes completely breaks down and delays accumulate quickly over the day.
Do you want to help someone improve their visualization skills? Or do you want to train others on any other statistics skills?
Training is a very important topic for us statisticians. We train people all the time it can be about statistics or non-statistics.
Is it possible to align business focus and self development at the same time? How can we create clear department or company goals or relate these to our goals?
In this episode, Benjamin talk about how to make business focus and self development work together. We also provide you numerous tips on how to make it work.
While we go through our career, we have lots of days that are more or less similar: meetings, discussions, and emails. But sometimes there are spotlight moments. You can be in a meeting with various senior people or work with new clients that is really critical. You have a meeting that will make it or break it. Very often these kind of meetings come with some kind of warning. You e.g. know you need to defend your case in front of a committee and it will be a tough discussion.
One of the toughest discussion you can be in as a statistician is a GBA hearing in Germany. During this meeting you can make or break the launch of a new product or indication in Germany with consequences for Europe and beyond. As a statistician you're here in a high stake discussion.
What is a statistical unicorn? What should we be doing to become one?
Gary Sullivan introduced me to Ena and she's a really interesting statistician. She was actually quite ahead of her time when she founded her CRO.
What are the limitations and strength of introverts in negotiations? What does listening really mean and why is it important for negotiations? How do to handle different emotions during negotiations or emotional hijack? How to extract intel from without being obvious?
It is important to be an effective negotiator as negotiation is all around us all the time. Whether it's about daily life or making decisions at work as statisticians. But at as experts in this field (and being mostly introverts), we need several skills to develop and grow our negotiation skills.
What is Dark Data? What inspired David to write this book? What did he hope to accomplish in its writing?
Today, we all make decisions using data. Dark Data shows us all how to reduce the risk of making bad ones.
How does data visualization work for journalism? What can we learn from it as statisticians?
Today, we will be talking about data visualization in journalism with Irene. She has worked for BBC so she has a background with journalism and we will learn from her perspective.
Are you looking for a promotion or a higher salary? What are the processes to grant these kind of requests? Can you ask for this right away or is there a specific timing?
When I started my career, I had no clue about this topic so I made a lot of mistakes and learned it the hard way.
The right approach to this depends on number of things. One is considering the size of your company. If you are in a small company, the chance of directly negotiating with the owner of a CRO is bigger than the big companies. While in bigger companies, you need to undergo a certain process in the HR department.
What is a good or bad strategy? What is the difference between strategy and goals? Has strategy something to do with vision or long-term thinking?
Afraid of speaking up? Afraid of talking to senior management? Afraid of giving a presentation? Afraid of speaking to someone new?
Then you are definitively not alone. Many supervisor worry about their staff not speaking up and I have come across even senior statisticians, who are very uncomfortable about doing a pre-recorded interview for the podcast.
How do you create and teach effective and moving content that your audience will pay attention to and add great value to them?
Teaching is really important to us statisticians because we need to explain stats and data all the time to our colleagues, within stats or outside stats.
Is having a mentor really beneficial? What is Manatee Mentor? What are its key features? How can this predict your professional success?
Manatee Mentor is an AI-powered platform to make mentoring inclusive, affordable and accessible to all. It can match or unmatch with your mentor and mentee through its constantly learning AI algorithm. You can choose your topic of mentoring, preferences, and find your perfect match in few clicks.
What is the data project? Why are data management programs a strategic imperative? Why do they fail?
Usually a data management project starts with a change of perspective in the organisation, especially from senior leaders. To make such a project happen, data leaders must be familiar with the principles of change management, learn to speak the language of business, and be excellent listeners to craft and communicate an interesting and realistic vision to release value from information.
You may think that QR codes aren't new. But it's actually quite something new in our field.
We as statisticians, should not just leave the use of QR code to other functions such as medical writing. Instead, let's leverage this tool to have an impact and improve our output.
Today, we have a special guest, Shanti. Learn while she shares with us her vast experience in the pharmaceutical industry collected over 25 years. She held various positions inside and outside of statistics organization.
When I started my career as a statistician in the clinical world, I was wondering about safety analysis. I thought it's always the same - count the patients with an event - job done! Then just repeat.
But it's not that simple, especially in more complex situation where you have different follow-up times. Then the patients that stay longer on treatment as they benefit from it, also get more adverse events. Naively counting the patients with events or the number of events may make the beneficial treatment look worse. So, how can you account for this?
Why spend part of your career in non-clinical statistics? What are the advantages? What is the importance of having a variety of tools?
R versus SAS - which is a better tool?
Today, we talk about a controversial topic. If you go online and look into social media, you'll find a lot of data scientists that talk about R versus Python. In medical and clinical research, it's more about R versus SAS.
For this discussion, we have Sam Gardner and Thomas Neitmann representing SAS and R, respectively.
We may use movements and transformations as an add-on to the design.
However, this type of implementations can be more important than that.
Motion in visualizations is not a gratuitous element. On the contrary, animations can influence how users interact and understand our designs.
We all want to be happy and satisfied at work and get some recognition. Yet, work is often a struggle, a troll.
What can we do to be happier at work? How to work in a dynamic environment? What are the different supervisory skills you can use to be happier at work?
Invictus Out of the night that covers me Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
How can you determine what control strategy to use for a manufacturing process? What can you learn from this even if you are not working with manufacturing?
A control strategy for a drug manufacturing process is the overall approach to ensure that when you make the drug product, it’s going to be of acceptable quality. It is a great way to think about how you can optimize and control a very long process that has many factors.
The topics we discuss apply a lot for any other process that you are looking into where there many steps and where understand variability and what is driving quality is important.
In this episode, you will also learn about the design of factorial experiments.
Never Split the Difference written by Chris Voss, who was a former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations—whether in the boardroom or at home. He reveals the skills that helped him and his colleagues succeed where it mattered most: saving lives.
Today, the number of infected people in this pandemic has been increasing and the third wave is coming, but statisticians still cannot convince the government to act accordingly. They fail in negotiating their point and convincing others. This book gives us some tips and tricks, and some calibrating questions on how to make effective negotiation that lead us to a YES.
What are the 5 levels of statistician leadership? How you can develop your leadership skills over time?
Leadership is multidimensional. It depends on lots of different skills like communication, being a good team player, building trust and relationship, negotiating conflicts, and more. The kind of leadership that I am talking about is not supervising other people or the administrative type of leadership, but it's a type of cross functional influencing where you lead others that don't necessarily report to you.
In this episode, we talk about non-clinical research and development and how statisticians contribute to these efforts. Join us while we talk about the following important phases of R&D.
Data visualization is at the heart of what we are doing (or should be doing) as statisticians. It moved from being a side topic a couple of years ago into a central part of the PSI conference in 2021. The upcoming PSI conference features 2 data visualization expert from the Financial Times as keynote speakers in addition to an interactive training and a contributed session about data visualization. A couple of further sessions will likely have a heavy emphasis on data visualization in a specific field like benefit-risk.
Everybody talks about AI, but where are the actual use cases? In the episode today, I'm talking with Dooti Roy about AiCure.
AiCure uses an easy-to-use, proprietary AI platform to directly engage and provide support to patients via smartphones to deliver meaningful, high-quality data around patient behavior.
As the pandemic continues to affect the community’s ability to meet in-person, virtual conferences adapt and develop to create space for companies.
Now, there is much more emphasis on virtual settings, and there are many new tools available to improve the virtual conference experience.
Are you a master's student or just graduated from a university? What is the Graduate Training Programme? How is the training conducted? What happens after the programme?
Veramed's graduate training programme aims to smooth the transition from graduate to effective member of a clinical biostatistics team. The comprehensive 12 week syllabus equips you with relevant skills and knowledge so that by the end of the training programme you will feel prepared for your new role as a Statistician or Programmer. As well as in depth technical training, you will get an overview of the industry and a range of soft skills to help you manage projects, communicate with clients and follow specific processes.
Even if you have some technical experience, our comprehensive programme ensures that any potential knowledge gaps are addressed. As the programme progresses you will take on more project work and client-specific training, and by the end of the 12 weeks you will have sufficient skills to work on client projects.
For today's episode, Qiqi and I talk about BI-UConn Summer Academy, an initiative we started 3 years ago to help students understand and learn the world of clinical development better and bring them networking opportunities. This hybrid academy is open to both UCOnn students and students outside of UConn. It's sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim.
Do you have a great idea you want to move forward and you need others to buy in?
Maybe you want to improve a process or implement a new analysis approach. Your business partner might be your study team or your supervisor.
Whenever, we want to change something, we usually need others to agree into the next steps.
Aiden has first worked on simulations during studying statistics to understand which sample sizes lead to sufficient performance of statistics, which are only asymptotically normal. It helped him in many situations, in which it was difficult to tackle a problem analytically. Simulations help us understand very complex situations, and the development of new treatments is surely a very complex topic.
We designed this program for statisticians and data scientist to strengthen your leadership skills so you can maximize your impact at work even if you don’t have direct reports. The Effective Statistician Leadership Program, a modular program of self-learning parts and moderated small group discussions, helps all statisticians and data scientists. It especially takes into account the needs of pharmaceutical statisticians, but the concepts will apply to any data scientist. It aims at all levels of statisticians and helps both junior statisticians without management responsibilities and experienced statisticians leading teams. We believe all data scientists and statisticians can be leaders.
Check out and learn more about the leadership program here: https://theeffectivestatistician.com/the-effective-statistician-leadership-program/
Clubhouse is a new social media platform that is audio only and only works on iOS or iPhones for now, but it will be available for Android phones in 5 months.
Just like in any other social media platform, you can also grow your network here and speak with each other.
You can only join a Clubhouse room if you receive an invitation. So, head over to LinkedIn and follow me to get the notification posts and create a LinkedIn post telling that you want to take part in the Clubhouse event and tag me.
The room will be open on a weekly basis at 3pm CET to talk about the latest podcast episodes and how to be an effective statistician and data scientist.
See you there!
Do you sometimes feel that you disrupt your own happiness and success? Are you overworked to make sense of yourself? Do your emotions often control you?
Stuart and I got a recommendation to read a book entitled "The Chimp Paradox: The Acclaimed Mind Management". This book is an incredibly powerful mind management model that can help you become a happy, confident, healthier, and more successful person.
In today's episode, we're talking with a niche part of clinical research many statisticians never get actively involved in: DMCs.
David Kerr comes with a deep knowledge and long experience in this setting. We'll speak about:
What is a DMC? What is the role of a DMC statistician? What are the best skills and traits of the DMC statistician
The knowledge about the bias variance trade off is very important for you as a statistician as it comes across your work - especially exploratory work - all the time. Taking care about it will help you avoid problems of over- or underfitting your models.
Jenny has encountered several highly competent people throughout her career who have admitted that they entered one path or another based on certain assumptions that were not entirely correct. Further, she has talked with interns about their future career interests and she sees them teetering on the edges of some same fallacies. It’s all fun and science until you have to get a job. As you will make this decision at some point, Jenny wants to give you a few key points to consider when evaluating potential statistics / data science careers in drug development and healthcare.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put pharmaceutical research firmly into the spotlight, with the urgent need to develop new therapies, tests, and vaccines. For those outside the industry, hearing announcements in the mainstream media, it is not always easy to understand the intensity of the work and collaboration that fuels game-changing new developments.
However, we know that there are thousands of ‘unsung heroes’ around the world, working in different capacities on different clinical trials to make the breakthrough. It has been a herculean collective effort.
Should we oversimplify statistics, or should managers learn more about statistics?
If you've been working as a statistician for a while, you know that you have to keep it simple if you want managers to understand you. Of course, I speak about those managers not being statisticians themselves.
There are a lot of ways to explain statistical concepts to them, but this adds time to the presentation. Sometimes there won't even be a presentation, and all you have is sending the report via email.
From reading, from my experience, and from talking to other experienced statisticians, I have distilled the knowledge about this challenge into 5 steps.
Outside of statistics departments, we are often seen as tactical and operational implementers. This branding makes it hard for statisticians to be included in strategic discussions. This limits our ability to influence the organizations and projects. It can even lead to entire departments being outsourced or not appropriately funded because of this terrible reputation. I'm long on a journey to fight against this branding. This journey also requires us statisticians to learn about thinking and acting strategically.
Our job as statisticians focuses primarily on the analysis and communication of uncertainty in its many aspects. For this episode, I think of uncertainty as the variability in the population we are studying, the uncertainty around estimates, or the model uncertainty, which we might capture via looking into various models.
What is change management? Is it only something for big corporate initiatives or does it also apply to smaller changes? Why does it require so much consideration? What's hard about change?
Change management is something I never thought about being interesting for statisticians, but recently, I needed to dive in to this frequently. I learned that this helps me when creating new designs or processes as it answers lots of questions about getting from an idea to an implementation.
Knowledge sharing is close to my heart and Nelson, who is a very knowledgeable statistician, has shared a lot of articles in LinkedIn and on his website.
Nelson has always been keen to learn from others and share that knowledge broadly, so we'll be exploring similarities and differences in how he's seen that be achieved in different circumstances.
Do you want to review a data visualization effectively? Do you want to provide your organization with a simple tool to improve your data visualizations? Do you need a checklist for yourself to make sure you covered everything for your data visualization? This episode is for you!
Do you want to review a data visualization effectively? Do you want to provide your organization with a simple tool to improve your data visualizations? Do you need a checklist for yourself to make sure you covered everything for your data visualization?
This episode is for you!
Principal stratification used to play a role only in observational research but at least since the addendum of the ICH E9 guideline, this approach to causal inference became a hot topic.
Yves and I have worked together in various roles. Over time, he became more interested in becoming a statistician and I helped him to change his career path in this direction.
Today, we are talking about Taylor Swift and visualizations. Does it seem like a very unreasonable thing? I thought so as well but then I read this interesting LinkedIn post where I laughed hard but it really made sense!
What's in it for statisticians and data scientists?
Design thinking is an interesting topic and is becoming more popular these days. I found out about it on LinkedIn and it's where I met Victoria.
What do you do if you need something from someone at work, but - You have never talked to this person ever before - This person doesn’t know you - The person is very protective about the thing you need - You have only 15 minutes to convince her
Stephen is a really interesting person. He is the author of The Art of Action and has a background in consulting and history. Based on this knowledge, he wrote a couple of books about history and leadership.
In terms of leadership, there's an area that overlooked usually from the business. However, business can learn a lot from this area. I'm talking about the military space as armies were the biggest organizations needing strong leadership for thousands of years.
How does understanding the bigger picture helps you to be more productive and to be more influential at work? How can this help you sell your work to your supervisors? How can you fit your work with others work? How can you easily understand where others are coming from?
Throughout the leadership program, this topic comes up again and again. We spend quite a lot of time talking about how you can better understand the bigger picture.
If you enjoyed the last book review, you'll surely enjoy this one as well. This is much more practical than the last one.
Getting to Yes is a very fundamental book that everybody should read. It was fundamental for me early in my career as it helped me through many negotiations throughout my career.
Do you feel overwhelmed by all the tasks? Do you think you are missing to get the big things done as you are drowning in day-to-day work? Are you frustrated about going home in the evenings feeling like you have not accomplished what you wanted?
Why do we need to innovate? What are the drivers for innovation? How much time would you invest in something if it made an awful task more bearable?
I really enjoyed this interview with Mike as we talked about his award-winning presentation.
Napoleon Hill is an interesting author and quite controversial but still good content to reflect upon.
In this episode, I want to reflect on: Why people fail in their careers? What hinders us from getting to the career goal set we have? How can we avoid doing the same thing in our own life?
Do you currently run an initiative? Do you want to get support or budget for an initiative? Do you want to change the design or analyses of a study? Do you need to run it past a committee or a senior person?
In this episode, I talk about the 4 important advice if you want to engage with key people in your organization
Today, I am talking about a topic that is very close to my heart. I want us, statisticians, to have an impact. I truly believe that if we make better decisions in our day-to-day jobs in our companies and organizations, then we can truly have a much bigger impact on the overall success of these organizations.
Why do you need personal leadership principles? How can you refine and reflect them? What kind of leader do you want to be? Is it possible to be a leader even without a title?
I will talk about personal leadership today and this is not being a leader by position, but by principle.
To give you an update, I'll be sharing with you what I have learned from the past year about visualization as I worked a lot of these - the exploratory and explanatory visualization.
What are typical meetings you would be invited to as a statistician? - Study meeting - Project meetings - Team meetings
What can we do about indirect comparisons to make it better and more efficient rather than using the usual technique? What are the indirect comparisons in terms of the efficacy of different drugs? What experiences have you had when the type of one-to-one approach is better?
How are safety analyses different from efficacy analyses? What does validation and quality control mean for interactive visualization?
Over recent years, a lot of interesting things happened around safety analyses and visualization. They help us to better understand our safety data and detect safety signals. Wei and colleagues have recently published an article about these topics.
Have you ever thought of having an additional or changing career? What are the things you must prepare for when considering this?
Today, we interview Lucy on how can statisticians create an impact beyond statistics. Lucy has a very inspiring career, and she has started as a statistician and got further responsibilities.
For your career, have you ever thought about what mindset you should adapt to? What do you think marks a “successful” career? What will help you understand in which direction your career should go?
Diana Stuart, who is a Senior Manager in programming, shares with us her thoughts, lessons, and her vast experience in this field and what we can do to create a robust career with all the surrounding changes.
Given the pandemic, this episode comes timely as it's a challenge to manage time while working at home.
But even after the pandemic, this challenge of getting most out of your time will not end.
Were there times you think about creating something bigger than what you currently have? Are you equipped and confident enough to start implementing strategies and plans for future service enhancement?
Imagine you need to choose a comparator for a head-to-head study. How do we usually approach it?
- Debate
- Meetings
- More meetings with other stakeholders
- Creating a slide deck
- Revising the slide deck
- Getting into time pressure
- Getting conflicting feedback
- Let’s just make a recommendation and find the data that supports this
Have you been sitting through boring presentations? Have you felt that the presenter lost the audience in seconds? Have you found yourself after a presentation thinking - so what?
When you are presenting, you don't want the audience to feel this way. But how can you deliver a knock-out presentation and wow the audience?
As statisticians, we often need to bring terrible news to the team. We’re the first to know, that a study didn’t reach the primary endpoint, or that safety analyses showed some new signals, or that some analyses contained mistakes, that need to be corrected.
How do you deal with such situations?
What are win-win situations for you? How to create such win-win situations?
Upon observing on our daily business, however, we have the tendency to view situations not as win-win but rather as win-lose. Is it really possible to have such kind of situation?
Are you working long hours? How do you manage your time? Do you know how to say no? How do you manage expectations?
We want to achieve our goals and be productive at the same time, i.e. we want to accomplish a lot of things during the day. But is it really effective to work long hours?
How do you create effective data visualization? How do you effectively understand and communicate your data?
This episode helps you to explore different perspectives and approaches to create more effective visualizations. Andy and Eva from MakeoverMonday offer inspiration and a dose of perspective for those who communicate data.
"A core outcome set (COS) is an agreed standardised set of outcomes that should be measured and reported, as a minimum, in all clinical trials in specific areas of health or health care".
The Introduction to Industry Training (ITIT) gives the delegates a taste of life across the pharmaceutical industry from early drug discovery to marketing, from CRO to Big Pharma and across the UK and continental Europe. The course aims to show the delegates the breadth and depth of work that goes on the industry and give them ideas of where they can get involved. PSI organized this course into 6 two-day sessions, each covering a stage of drug development and each hosted at a different company. The host company will give their unique perspective from experts in the field.
This is a very special episode. More than 2 years have passed since Benjamin and I started this podcast.
Do you know why is it so important to create a simple yet informative data visualization? How your design choices impact the visuals? How small details - like text alignment - influence the overall visualization? How gestalt principles guide you?
Are you stepping up as a statistician? Are you passionate enough in providing the value and helping society and the organization, and the people we serve?
The Corona Virus being discussed across the world, with all the visualizations there, it is really timely that I am speaking with Alberto Cairo. He is a visualization guru and has written the book "How Charts Lie". This book helps you as a statistician to understand various problems about charts, but more importantly, it helps you to educate your business partners that are not statisticians.
We all know how to specify a table and our processes support this. However, designing an awesome data visualization does not work this way. Our approach to table specification does not work?
As statisticians, we are one of the most capable professionals to understand and to relay the right information to the general public about the most talked-about situation - the Corona Virus.
In today's episode, I want to express what's on my mind and on my heart about this topic. You can agree or disagree with this and let me know what you think about it.
I also discussed my learnings, my reflection about this, and what is the meaning of this situation for us, statisticians.
Are you curious about how working from home works? How can you know if this is for you? What are the advantages and disadvantages when working from home? What is a good set-up when having a home office?
The COVID-19 outbreak forces many of us to work from home. But even before this, working from home became a growing trend, most especially at the moment. This interview will help you understand if this is something for you or not, and how you can make it happen, have fun with it, and get a better balance of your working time and other things.
Why is visualization so important? How do you determine the goal of visualization? What is the big difference between explanatory visualization and exploratory visualization?
Who is Florence Nightingale and what is impressive about her? Why would it be interesting to talk about her at the upcoming PSI conference? She’s famous for her visualization – what could statisticians today learn from her about visualization?
Listen now to learn more!
After a career that brought you as a statistician to various parts of the pharma world, what is the new job, that you just took on about?
What are the unique skills of statisticians - beyond just knowing about stats - compared to many other functions in the pharma world?
Which problems do statisticians need to take care of beyond the current regular work?
How can we make time to tackle these problems?
What skills do statisticians need to improve on to successfully tackle these problems?
Do you effectively communicate complex data? How can visualization help you when you are . . . analyzing data? . . . reporting data? What initiatives and groups work on this topic and will help you?
Real world evidence (RWE) Big data Real world data (RWD) Pragmatic studies
There are lots of buzzwords floating around and especially with the FDA having a bigger focus on RWE. Many teams in the different pharma organizations concentrate on this type of evidence.
Do you know what your external profile is? Do you have an idea of how to improve it?
In today's episode, Liz Cole and I will dive deep into a topic called content marketing. It’s kind of meta, since this podcast itself originates on these ideas. Does this sound frightening or disturbing? It shouldn’t.
With so many recent advances in AI, it is important for statisticians to both keep up to date with the most recent methods and getting involved in guiding their application to the most pressing statistical challenges.
In today's episode, Karim and I cover cutting edge examples of how data science and statistical sciences are intersecting. Learn from this episode why different approaches matter when looking at clinical development data.
Do you feel you're working like a firefighter? Do you have the perception, you're solving the same problems over and over? Do you worry about ever-changing requests from your business partners?
Then you are not alone - not even alone in the pharma world.
In today's episode, we will talk about the data ops manifesto which addresses such problems. There are actually a couple of such manifestos out there such as the agile manifesto or the dev ops manifesto. These sound similar to Demings 14 principles outlined in his “out of the crisis” publication.
6 effective leadership behaviours for statisticians
One of my favourite leadership podcast run by Olaf Kapinski - unfortunately in German - had a great episode recently (see here for the link to the Leben-Führen podcast: https://leben-fuehren.de/5-wirksame-verhalten-fuer-fuehrungskraefte/?pk_campaign=podcast&pk_kwd=5-wirksame-verhalten-fuer-fuehrungskraefte)
Today, we’re reflecting on the 5 behaviours Olaf mentioned and add a great 6th one, which is very relevant as well.
Can you really do a bigger role? Did you have a moment in your career, where you were thinking that you as a statistician is put in a box or labelled in such a way that limits your influence?
Only specialized statisticians discussed indirect comparisons in the past but over the years the topic developed into something, every statistician should know about.
In this episode, Benjamin and I talk about the important reasons for using indirect comparison (IC).
During this episode, we will review some of the highlights from this year. It’ll help you to remember a couple of lessons learned or inspire you to listen to some episodes (again).
So, hopefully you’ve listened to all of our other podcasts and you are still interested in applying for a job as a medical statistician…
This episode will give you all the information you need to find out how to apply, CV tips and what to expect at the interview, and what to do and what not to do!
I once reviewed tables for a randomized study and noticed several comments about testing the baseline characteristics. The commenters were arguing which test would be best to test for the differences between the 2 randomized groups at baseline.
This made my first angry about the wasted time and then curious about the reasons, statisticians still do this.
In today's episode, Benjamin and I discuss some backgrounds for baseline testing in randomized studies.
Listen to this episode, share it with others who might learn from it, and be an effective statistician!
What's interesting about the early phase? What are the typical decisions for phase II? Speaking about a new indication, how do you see decisions are being made across the industry? How should we think about phase II studies in this setting? What statistical approaches do we have to formulate this thinking?
So, you want to be a Statistician in the pharmaceutical industry, a key player in drug research and development, but you are wondering what employers look for in the perfect candidate?
PSI CALC are here to share their top tips on being the ideal candidate, what to expect when you apply and to share their ideas of what the industry is currently looking for in a graduate statistician.
Do you know how to make a good to-do list? Do you know how to set priorities versus time it takes? Do you have a problem with over-committing?
One of the most effective skills you can have in life is effective time management. According to Michael Hyatt: "What gets scheduled gets done. " If you're not managing your time well, there's no way you're going to reach your goals at work and the life outside of it.
Marc Zao-Sanders - time boxing as the number 1 ranked tool for productivity among 100 tips
Do you want to have fun at work? Do you want to experience satisfaction? Do you want to get things done at work?
Getting into flow is about these things. Today, we will speak about a research on how to get into the flow and reach your peak performance.
So, you’re considering pursuing a career in Statistics but you’re not quite sure. You may be at Uni studying a BSc in Mathematics or a related field, or you may be considering a change in career. How do you get from where you are now to being a Statistician in the medical industry? What are your next steps?
This episode will cover what to start thinking about now, where you can get further advice on MSc courses and funding and where you can search for jobs.
Do you often find your workday spiraling out of control? Do you want to be more productive than you yesterday? Do you want to know how to improve your skill set and work performance? Do you start each day with a plan, but soon become distracted and procrastinating?
You are not alone. Sometimes, it’s easier to wait for someone else to tell you what things you should work on rather than to assess yourself.
Focusing on continually improving your skill set will boost your confidence and help you become the best version of yourself.
In today's episode, Benjamin and I discuss what you need to know to increase productivity.
Listen now to be an effective Statistician!
How do you know if you are an introvert? Is it possible to lead successfully even as an introvert? Do you know how to be successful being an introvert?
People who are introverted tend to be inward turning, or focused more on internal thoughts, feelings and moods rather than seeking out external stimulation. They tend to be more quiet, reserved, and introspective. Unlike extroverts who gain energy from social interaction, introverts have to expend energy in social situations.
Statistics isn’t traditionally known to be a trendy subject, but here we are saving lives around the world by developing new and mighty medicines. You’ve probably heard by now that data is basically gold, and fortunately we statisticians work with data. Now that’s a lot of power we hold, so let’s put it to good use!
- What kind of companies are out there?
- Statistics is needed to produce revolutionary new medicines - yes, really!
- Will I be at a desk all day, on my own, in a windowless room?
- What’s a typical day? Excite me..
- Learn about different diseases
- Not just a stats nerd - the other skills that are VERY important
Do you know why network meta-analyses (NMA) important? Do you wonder what steps are included in NMAs?
Network meta-analysis is a very important field, especially for multiple treatment options where a direct comparison is impossible without using this systematic review and analysis.
Do you really know how to deal with conflict?
Conflict is one of the biggest topics of stress at work. Managing conflict gives a huge drive to our success and satisfaction at work but in reality, it's really a challenge to manage it.
Today, we give you the recording of a webinar with Gary on how to effectively resolve conflict without giving in and you'll learn about these points:
How do we develop new medicines to treat nasty diseases? It all starts by discovering a novel target molecule in the lab. Fast forward 12 years and an average expenditure of 1.5 billion dollars we hopefully get the thumbs up from health authority bodies to license the medicine for public use. So we skipped a lot of important steps there. The journey for developing new medicines is extremely lengthy and complicated. Fortunately, you can listen to this podcast and know all the important stuff in 20 minutes! Statisticians are involved in all aspects of drug development. Having knowledge of the process from start to finish is important, as it will help you understand why statistics is an essential and relied upon toolkit in this industry. - Quick overview of the drug development process - Where and why statisticians add value in the process - Key stakeholder interactions - who do statisticians collaborate with?
What are the bigger trends in the biopharmaceutical industry, which will have an impact for statisticians? . . . in terms of technology changes? . . . in terms of regulatory changes? . . . in terms of political/society changes? What can statisticians do to prepare for these changes?
Why is text mining so important? What are the typical challenges and research questions in this area? Are there any ones typical for medical/pharmaceutical research? What data sources could we tap into? What are some foundational concepts in natural language processing?
What can you learn from Leanardo Da Vinci on how to put things into perspective? Do you struggle with learning about data communication? How important is data visualization?
Storytelling is one of the great leadership things that play a role in communication. Through stories, you can get the alignment, you can influence others, and you can have an impact on others. It's one of the pieces of a puzzle to be an effective statistician.
What can you learn from Leonardo Da Vinci on how to put things into perspective? Do you struggle with data communication? How important is data visualization?
Do you have great ideas but struggling to implement them? Is having an idea and just being right already good enough? What can you do to convince your supervisor? How can you help others understand your point of view? Do you have the right tools on how to make things work?
In this episode, I'm speaking with two members of The Effective Statistician Leadership program. One is coming from academia and one is from a pharmaceutical organization - they both have interesting and inspiring success stories.
Do you have what it takes to be a leader? What skills can you learn from the leadership program? What is the mastermind concept? How can the leadership program help you become a better influencer?
In this interview, I’m speaking with two leadership students, Sam and Ludi, on what they have developed throughout The Effective Statistician Leadership program. You’ll learn a lot about how leadership helps you to achieve your goals at work and how it also helps you to increase your job satisfaction.
Have you thought about being a leader? Do you feel responsible or afraid of taking the lead? Are you equipped enough to be one?
Our definition of leadership is the ability to consistently deliver value to an organization or a cause by inspiring others to take a specific direction or action when they truly have the freedom of choice to do otherwise.
Do others not help you? Are they making your life hard? Is your company bad? Does your compound suck and hinders your work productivity?
A lot of people complain about almost everything. Statisticians tend to be more on the introvert side and there are discussions that introverts are more likely to have a victim mentality.
Frank has something in common with Benjamin and myself - we all studied statistics in Göttingen and learned and researched in non-parametric statistics. Afterwards, we went into different paths. Whereas Benjamin started at a CRO and I joined large pharma organizations, Frank continued on the academic track.
He recently became Professor at the famous Charitee in Berlin, where he’s still dedicating a lot of research to the field of non-parametric statistics. However, he’s not an ivory tower researcher but also applies these approaches in the medical research he’s taking part in.
Learn about a whole universe of different approaches, which will help you overcome many limitations of the methods, which you’re using daily.
Why do you think many of these “subgroup” projects are a headache for statisticians? Have you felt frustrations about such projects yourself? What are the steps to avoid or at least minimize these frustrations?
Do you have the same questions in mind? These are some of the questions Necdet will be and sharing with us.
This episode is based on a presentation at PSI 2019. Necdet won The Effective Statistician Best Presenter award for the amazing delivery of the presentation. But not only the delivery was excellent - the content will help you a lot.
Are you curious about why and how I started The Effective Statistician? What's in it for you? Why I'm passionate about it?
Are you a sponsor who is seeking joint scientific advice from a regulatory agency and from an HTA body?
If yes, this episode is for you. This presentation replicates the discussions which may go on during scientific advice. The example was in Respiratory. This roleplay is played by David Wright, Oliver Keene, Stephen Ruberg, and myself. The aim is to show a couple of discussion points and an interesting aspect that may come up with such discussions.
A lively debate followed about the differing needs of Regulatory agencies vs HTA, with the patient voice often not taking centre stage.
As statisticians, we work in cross-functional teams, but many people, especially junior people prefer to follow rather than to lead - and that's okay. Ask yourself:
Do you always take the position of the follower or a leader? Do you need to train yourself to lead? Are you seen as an implementer? Do you have goals for your project?
A lot of statisticians, especially in pharmaceutical companies but also CROs, fear outsourcing because it might make their job redundant. Think about:
What can you do about it? How can you add value to your organisation? What would it cost to outsource your organisation? If you would need to compete with other organisations, would you survive?
Storytelling allows businesses to better understand insight.
Data visualization is a great tool to help share, or tell a story, but relies on the story being written first. Improved data communication comes from combining good visualization with a well-written narrative.
There's a lot to learn to be a good data storyteller.
Today, I’m talking with Kat about: - What do you understand by storytelling with data? - Why is it important? - Which role should statisticians play? - What skills do statisticians need for this? - Where to learn these skills?
There is an endless list of things that can go wrong in sponsor-CRO relations. I’m pretty sure you have been in painful discussions about this. Have you felt a lot of frustrations on both ends?
If yes, this episode is for you. We’re sharing interesting insights here as Benjamin works for a CRO and I work for the sponsor side. We will be giving you a lot of insights on what to do and what not to do, and how to make the collaboration between a sponsor and a CRO successful.
The 2019 PSI Conference took place at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre (QEII), London, with the theme of “Data Driven Decision Making in Medical Research”.
The sessions included early phase innovative trial design, industry best practice, statistical issues in safety drug labelling, model-based dose-finding designs, an update from Transcelerate and much more.
In this series of interviews with the speakers at the conference, we talked about different topics: - Visualization software - Benefit risks approach - Global statistical test for multiple endpoint analysis - Estimands - AE analysis using a volcano plot
Do you agree that everybody makes mistakes? Have you had to deal with a mistake yourself, that you were really concerned about? Were you afraid about speaking with your supervisor or your team with it?
We are all imperfect humans making mistakes. The questions are:
how do we deal with them, what we can do about them, and what to do to minimize them.
Processes are made to minimize mistakes and there different processes were set up to deal with mistakes and help you when mistakes occur.
Have you been sitting in boring presentations that made you start reading your emails? Have you been listening to someone, wondering if this is for me? Have you been getting away from a presentation and thinking 2 hours later: “what was this about?”
You’re surely don’t want your audience to feel this way, when you’re presenting yourself. You can’t be an effective statisticians without good presentation skills from my perspective. You will always need to present results, defend designs, or explain data.
Todays episode will give you insights into 7 mistakes of presentations. And honestly, I see at least one of them in nearly every presentation and I struggle with them as well – just listen to this episode and you’ll have a live example 😊.
The last PSI conference has just ended, but the timeline for a new abstract submission for the next one in Barcelone in 2020 will come up in about November 2019. Thus, it’s important to now start thinking about it.
Presenting at the PSI conference is an awesome experience. For me, PSI is by far the best conference for statisticians in the health sector as it is 100% applicable and actionable. If you’re abstract gets accepted for oral presentation or as a poster, you have a great argument for convincing your supervisor to approve the travel to Barcelona.
If you think, this is to much of a stretch, because you’re not located in Europe, just think about a different conference.
Join the challenge to submit an abstract and work together with others to overcome and roadblocks!
I recently changed my job and moving from one company to another comes with lots of uncertainty. Will I pick the right one? How can I make sure, that I actually get the job, that I want? Will hiring companies find me and offer me jobs?
For any statistician a job change represent a major shift and occurs rather infrequent – hopefully. For a recruiter – this is day-to-day business.
Look out for lots of great learnings and insights!
Have you ever considered to work with a placement student? Do you consider to spend some time as a placement student yourself?
In this interview with Katie Thorn and Claire Brittain, we’re exploring factors, which help to make it a win for both sides. Both have worked very well together and share their stories.
I recently talked to a statistician, that initiated a small company internal group of statisticians to drive forward methodological innovation projects. While this surely will help the individuals to learn more about statistical methods, it was less clear, why and on which topics the group should focus their activities on.
While most of our day-to-day activities consists of running clinical studies, submissions and directly related work, we also engage in such innovation work streams or process improvement working groups and other such activities.
Today, we’re giving you advice on how to best pick the right projects to work on as you usually have some influence on this.
As statisticians in the medical field, we’re used to study subgroups of patients with respect to all kinds of biological variables: from demographics to genomics. This provides us with a good understanding of how the benefit-risk profile for a given patient looks like.
However, the patient might have a completely different view on the importance of the different benefits and risks. And importantly, these preferences might be less driven by biologic factors and more by personal experiences and situations as well as psychological traits. How can we assess patient preferences in this regard?
Marco Boeri and I worked on such questions in the past and some work has been presented at last years PSI conference. In todays episode, we give you some insights into what’s possible and how you can approach this problem.
Estimands continue to be a hot topic, but many statisticians struggle to put it into practice. As statistician, we wonder about the correct interpretation and how to analyse different estimands.
In todays episode, we speak with Michael O’Kelly, an expert on this topic with lots of presentations around estimand (see e.g. the PSI events). He also won the award for Statistical Excellence in the Pharmaceutical Industry, jointly run by the RSS and Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (PSI).
One of the most common questions I got asked during my nearly 2 decades of being a statistician sounds similar to this: “Which patients have the best response to treatment?” I’m sure, we all face this situation sooner or later and not surprisingly lots of research has happened in the last years on this area. In todays episode, we will help you to understand one of the best approaches I have come across to solve this problem in a rigorous yet sophisticated way: the SIDES approach. Both Andy Nicholls and I have applied this approach in the past and we’ll use an example, which he presented during a PSI webinar. Listen to this episode to learn step by step how to apply the SIDES method.
Prespecified=good and post-hoc=bad. This is how we as statistician see it usually and I did too. However, over the past years I realized more and more, that it’s not that easy. How many details do you need to have to call an analysis pre-specified? Should we label a request to analyse a certain subgroup by regulators as well as a fishing expedition to find a significant subgroup both in the same way: post-hoc? Lovisa and I together with some others are presenting at the next PSI conference about this topic and today, we dive already into this topic and identify different dimension to be considered to understand better the different shades pre-specified analyses. Listen to this episode to avoid oversimplification and confusion in discussions in the future.
Analysing binary or continuous data usually doesn’t cause any headaches for statisticians. But when we step into ordinal data, most of us ignore their specific nature and either dichotomize them or analyse them as if they are continuous.
Recently, these problems have becoming much more prevalent due to the nature of composite endpoints (watch out for an interesting episode on this in a few weeks).
Now Benjamin and I have worked on better tools to analyse such data already at university. We’ll dig back into what we learned then and what is still relevant today.
Risk-based monitoring plays an increasingly important role for clinical trials. Of course, the assessment of the risk is based on statistics. This presents now only interesting career options for statisticians, but also has an impact on the role of statisticians in study teams.
In this episode, we’ll give you an introduction to risk-based monitoring (RBM) as well as speak about the role of statisticians in this area. Further we provide you as a study statistician insights into what you need to know about RBM. Finally, we also give some recommendations in terms of further resources to learn from.
- Start with a relevant example
- Collect questions upfront and track progress of answering them during the training
- Create regular meetings to engage people
- Interrupt your presentations with asking questions
- Use contrasts to show the impact
- Have a physician first introduce the example study
- Don’t shy away from speaking to very basic things like p-values
- Prefer white board over slides
- Use technology for your advantage in virtual settings
- Make pre-read easy
- Collect feedback
Ultimately, we work to improve patients lives but traditionally the voice of the patient was not important. However, over the last decades many stakeholders shift to include the patient more in the decision-making process and patients voice their needs and preferences more.
Still capturing and evaluating patient preferences does not belong to the core capabilities of most biostatisticians. This episode will help you to understand patient preferences.
Are you early in your career and you could still go for a PhD in statistics?
Do you wonder, if this pays out short and long-term?
Is it worth the money?
What are the long-term benefits or are there actually short term benefits as well?
Do you want to change your job? Are you just looking for you first job? Do you consider to work for your own company or as a free-lancer?
Then this episode will help you!
Benefit-risk assessments are made by various stakeholders including sponsors, regulators, payers, physicians, and patients throughout the life-cycle of a treatment.
The understanding of data plays a vital role in weighting positive and negative effects of medications.
In this episode, we give you an introduction to what benefit-risk (BR) assessment is in order for you to understand your role.
In this episode, we talk about - how to network - how to prepare for the conference - how to follow up after the conference As well as some specific topics around the PSI conference itself.
This episode follows the outline of a webinar, that I presented in 2018 during a PSI webinar. I’m introducing cluster analysis and why you as a statistician need to know about it.
There’s a long tradition of statisticians working on clinical studies as well as other related data, e.g. pre-clinical data and observational data. In the advent of big data and data sciences, there’s a considerable pull from the business side of pharma to employ statistical approaches as well. What does this mean for medical statisticians?
Do you want to learn where the health sector might be heading in terms of data science?
Do you understand the opportunities and barriers in terms of the application of data science?
Are you prepared to learn the individual skills needed for these changes?
Then this interview with Ursula from Cytel provides you with the relevant answers.
It's surely not the norm, that a statistician from the pharma sector ends up working for BBC. But Robert Cuffe has taken this step and needs to explain statistics to non-statisticians on a daily basis.
In this episode, he shares the different methods he’s using. We also dive into common pitfalls, that we as statisticians trap into.
Finally, we also learn, how we can improve our publications to make sure, that the science is reported correctly in the broader news.
Do you know that TransCelerate does for statisticians? Do you write study protocols, analysis plans and programming specifications as individual documents noting, that there’s lots of redundancy? Do you wonder, if there’s a more efficient was in-line with what regulators want?
Pepa Polavieja will provide you with answers to all these questions in this episode.
Do you think, R can’t be used for regulatory submissions? Are you forced to use SAS but would like to use R instead? Would you like to understand how you can make R submission proof?
In this last part of the leadership series with Gary Sullivan, we talk about the next steps, you can take to work on your leadership skills.
In the third part of the leadership series with Gary Sullivan, we talk about: - What skills does it takes to influence as a statistician? - When it’s about driving change - what are the rational, operational, and emotional challenges? - How do I get a "seat at the table" and have more influence?
n this second part of the interview with Gary, we speak about the building blocks of leadership without authority from a statistician’s perspective.
We cover questions like: - Is influence the same as power? - What is the role of trust, what are the different elements of trust and how can we improve trust being technical experts? - How can we build relationships at work, that help us to influence change? - Is influence through relationships only relevant “sideways” or also “upwards” and “downwards”? - How do we know, with whom we need to invest in building relationships? - Is there a way of assessing how good our relationships are?
This is an announcement episode of an upcoming free webinar. Learn more about this webinar and register for it at theeffectivestatistician.com/webinar.
With some nice drinks in our hands, we welcome the new year and commit to new year resolutions. We set our personal goals and pretty soon, we’ll have discussions at work about business related goals.
This episode will help you to not only be ready for the discussions with your supervisor, but also give you tools to reach the goals with better probability than the usual vague new years resolutions.
Happy Christmas! This episode is the last one in 2018 and we will distil the best of the last 40 episodes for you in this Christmas edition of the podcast.
It has been anamazing journey and we will talk about the challenges and the learnings as well as the achievements of the podcast itself. Thus, you’ll get a behind the scenes look into the podcasting work.
KOLs play a major role in the health sector and professionally working together with them will boost your career! This episode provides you with lots of insights and tips.
In this episode, we talk • about how the interactions between pharma companies and KOLs look like • which rules are important and how you as a statistician should comply with these • about practical tips of building relationships with KOLs • about opportunities to work with KOLs • and about mindset topics in engaging withKOLs
If you ask someone within the pharma world of statisticians on what is the hottest topic, you most likely will just get: Estimands!
Many scientific events, conference sessions, publications and presentations are organized around this topic. Thus, I'm super happy, that we have Mouna and Chrissie on the podcast as they have presented about this topic at various occasions.
In this episode, you will learn about
- the importance of the concept itself and it’s implications
- the terminology of the estimand framework
- and how it relates to missing data terminology
Have you ever been proposing or defending a project in a larger meeting - maybe even with senior management - and it didn't go as smoothly as you would like?
Or do you prepare yourself for such a meeting and you feel unsure about what to expect?
Then this episode will help you!
Same procedure every year - the year end review as part of the performance management appears on your calendar. Are you worried about filling in forms? Do you feel like this is not adding value?
In this episode, we give you practical tips how to master the review like a pro.
We're launching a new leadership course next year and in this episode, we go into some key questions about statisticians and leadership.
Today, regulatory approval doesn't ensure anymore, that patients benefit from new therapies. As statisticians, we also need to ensure access and reimbursement for new treatments in the different markets around the world.
The process to gain this access and reimbursement in Germany comes with very specific challenges. Yet, due to the large impact of Germany on other countries via the complex reference pricing system and the size of the population of Germany, we must understand these topics.
Andreas Schwenke gathered experiences across therapeutic areas with many companies since the start of the new process in Germany. This makes him the most experienced and best connected statistician in the world for this topic.
We're all making decisions to optimize our studies. Optimizing project plans across different studies presents further challenges. But how to increase the overall portfolio of a company given its limitations leads yet another set of challenges. Knowing how decisions are taken at this top level helps to understand the bigger picture and why this sometimes implies sub-optimal decisions on a study or compound level.
Another big learning from these complex interactions are the influencing skills needed to work with senior and diverse teams.
Only a few statisticians in the industry work in these areas and Andreas Sashegyi is of these.
You have probably heard about Simon Sinek and his golden circle. If not, have a look at his great TED talk.
In this episode we explain via a nice story with BA, what the impact of starting with why can be. We also cover how you can more effectively work together with CROs and Programmers as well as new team members.
Becoming a supervisor changes things dramatically at work for you. It did for me and Simon helped me by openly providing deep insights into his years of a supervisor - especially his failures and dramtic moments.
Everybody knows such situations: tight timelines, high expectations and many things to do!
But how can we work effectively in such situations. Many different productivity experts have written about this topic.
In this episode, I’m speaking about how to implement these approaches and also my personal learnings and challenges during a time, where I needed them.
I’m applying and discussing the following topics:
Prioritization Delegation Managing expectations and communication channels Music as a productivity booster Make productive breaks Setting up a effective systems Methods against procrastinate Managing disturbances Setting up your body for productivity Multi-tasking The pomodoro method Morning routine Silence Affirmation Visualization Exercise “Reading” “Scribing” Habits to get into the deep work mode Deep Work by Cal Newport Working from home Some resources for productivity:
Beyond the to-do list podcast This is your life podcast by Michael Hyatt In German: Einfach produktiv podcast with Ivan Blatter
Leadership skills for statisticians represents a common theme across many episodes of this podcast. As leadership consists of many different aspects, it is important to learn from other statisticians, that exhibit these skills.
In this episode, we talk with Gemma and Margaret, who have run successful leadership courses within PSI. We cover the following topics:
What are the core leadership skills that statistician need to be fluent in? What are common mindset issues, that block statisticians from being more influential? How can statisticians overcome these blocks? Why it’s beneficial for statisticians to have a tailored course for them? What courses are available from PSI?
Are you still counting tables? Do you worry about having to many of them? Do you wonder how to get an overview across all the results?
In this episode, we will talk about this thoughts and we will explore, how tables fit into the bigger picture.
We will also discuss alternative ways to deal with results, which will: - save you time - decrease the costs - speed up the process - and increase the quality.
If you think, this sounds like magic, listen to this podcast episode.
Do you think, you have nothing to add to a statistical conference? Are you afraid of sharing your achievements? Do you wonder, why you should put in the effort on top of your day-to-day job?
All these thoughts and questions will be addressed in this episode with Paul Terrill, the chair of the scientific committee of PSI.
Beyond the questions above, we will also talk about the logistics and practical tips on how to submit your abstract and to become a speaker at next years conference.
Understand multiplicity challenges in practical situations
Learn how to actually implement it
Learn where to get further information
In part 2 of this interview with Walt Offen, we cover:
Having courage to speak up in all settings Listen carefully to others; ignore rank within the company Instituting any new rule or policy must affect the leader equally Grab opportunities when they come your way, even if you do not feel ready. See the issue from other’s perspectives Understand, appreciate, and celebrate diversity of thought, personality, skills, and beliefs Always strive to get better and help those around you Do not take “we’ve always done it that way” as an acceptable answer Be a solid role model Develop self-confidence; be able to laugh at yourself
In this episode, I have the privilege to interview Walt Offen. A statistician that is about to end an amazing career over a couple of decades of working in the pharmaceutical industry. Walt organized together, what he believes to be the 20 key attributes of highly successful leaders. They are organized in no particular order but enriched with great stories. Of course, there is a difference between leadership and managing. Leadership is the ability to inspire others when there is no supervisory control. For a highly effective organization, everyone can and should be a leader. In part one, we cover the first 10: Having a can-do attitude Being able to apologize Inspiring others to join the cause (without authority) Share credit Show humility Be trustworthy and develop trust in others Engaging everyone on the team, making them feel valued and important Remain calm, be kind to everyone Provide opportunities for others to shine Putting the organization, colleagues, the company, ahead of personal goals
In this very short episode, I'm stepping back from the day-to-day business and reflect about why we go to work every day.
I have a very personal story about it, that helped me to see things very clearly and I'm sharing this in this episode.
Further, many of you will listen this during vacation time and thus, I'm also touching on the importance of taking a break.
There is no episode next week as we take a summer break as well.
Indirect comparisons provide evidence, when no direct clinical trials are available. However, the different approaches come with various limitations. Some more recent approaches take into account the baseline characteristics to reduce the bias in the estimates of the treatment effects.
In todays episode, I'm talking with one the worlds experts on this topic - Nicky Welton - who has published extensively in this field.
Starting from the basics of indirect comparisons we move into the most recent research in this area. These new approaches will help to better understand treatment effects in specific populations of interest. Possible applications run from designing phase II or III studies up to re-imbursement dossiers and commercialization efforts.
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Every statistician in the health sector must know about estimands and how to apply the estimand framework.
In this episode we introduce the topic using a case study. We’ll cover
How does the HTA system in Germany work? What are the 4 critical elements for the estimands framework? How does the application of the estimand framework differ in study planning vs post-hoc?
Today I'm looking back at the PSI conference 2018 in Amsterdam. You'll learn about my personal highlights and key take aways from the conference.
I have also interviewed some interesting people from the conference for you to get some feeling about the atmosphere at this amazing event.
In this episode, I'm covering the following episodes:
Nupur Kolis key note speach in the plenary session about “The Future of Healthcare: Trends, Opportunities and Challenges“ Interview with Nelson Kinnersley about the workshop "Owning Your Own Development" The session "Not Just Another AE Table" with an interview with Maria Costa about "Personalised Benefit-Risk Assessment" The workshop "Learn How To Swing: Hands on Workshop on Preference Elicitation in the Age of Personalised Medicine" The session "Estimands Case Studies" The session "Gone in 60 Seconds (Poster Review)" including an interview with Jules Hernandez-Sanchez The keynote by Steve Ruberg about "Statistics and Data Science: Is Six the Same as a Half-Dozen?" The workshop "Improving Your Communication" The session "Patient Centricity" The session "What Matters Most? - A Scientific Advice Role Play" including an interview with Mouna Akacha The session "A Picture Says More Than 1000 Tables - Interactive Data Review" The session "Regulatory Town Hall"
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As a statistician we delegate all the time with programming being probably the most prevalent example.
In this episode, we start by showing in two personal examples how delegation improves your productivity amazingly or how it can lead into complete disaster.
Furthermore we cover the following questions:
- Why is delegation so important?
- Why are not only managers delegating?
- Why should I delegate, if I can do it myself?
- What task can I delegate?
- How can I delegate appropriately?
- Why are many people not delegating more actions?
By listening to this episode, you will also learn about these 4 principles of delegation: - Any task should be done by the most junior team member possible. - Delegate tasks in such a way, that they are interesting for the people to work on. - Specify what goal you want achieved, defining together what a great outcome looks like and support as needed, but resist the urge to tell exactly how to achieve the goal. - Delegate deliverables not tasks
The episodes concludes with a discussion on the how to create an environment where - your team members thrive, - you successfully reach great project outcomes, - people are motivated and engaged, and - both team members and leadership wins.
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In this episode we have our first non-statistician as a guest. Julia has build her own consulting and training company Zestfor. She and her team specialise in developing Training programmes and resources scientifically tailored for technical markets – including Pharmaceutical, IT, and Life Sciences.
Getting things done through others is a key part or even the definition of leadership and her clients face often the same situation like statisticians. They need to convince people rather than commanding them.
In this episode, we cover the following topics: - Why statisticians need to be more influential? - Is influencing actually something bad on inappropriate? - What characterises an influential person? - Which practices help statisticians to increase their influence? - Many statisticians are more introvert. As such, how can they deal with more extrovert business partners from other functions? - Relationships are key for influencing without authority. Trust is key for building these relationships. What can statisticians do, to generate more trust? - Networking is another aspect of building relationships. What actions to take to build networks? - Many of us work in virtual settings to some extent. This poses additional barriers on influencing others as it is much harder to be heard and understood. Which techniques can we apply to overcome these hurdles?
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In order to make new drugs available to patients in Australia, a successful interaction with the PBAC – the Australian HTA body is needed. Alan Brnabic lives in Australia and collected a lot of experience with these submissions over the years.
In this episode, we cover: - the basics of understanding how the PBAC works, - why a successful PBAC submission is important, - what evidence is needed to have a successful PBAC submission, - how much work is needed from the statistician’s side for the PBAC interactions, - what are the typical challenges from the PBAC, - when is a good start to get prepared for the PBAC work, and - how is the data submitted to PBAC publicly available.
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In this podcast episode, we discuss an important part of leadership - proactive behaviour. Or simply put - drive!
As a statistician, you’re day-to-day approach about this topic will build up to long-term success.
We discuss various aspects of drive including:
- how it relates to your goals,
- what it takes to think strategically,
- which role innovation has here,
- what practical steps to take to drive teams forward,
- which knowledge to acquire to lead teams successfully,
- how this relates to influencing,
- and how your attitude will play a big role in this.
Ok – not everything, but in this episode you will get all the tips to make sure, you avoid the most common mistakes and that your code looks professional.
Shafi Chowdhury is an expert programmer who has developed a style guide, which his clients apply broadly. He regularly gives trainings on SAS programming and build his own company based on these skills.
He walks us through the different points and clarifies, why they are important from an efficiency but also from a quality perspective.
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In this episode, we’ll cover an amazing story by one of the best programmers and mentors I ever worked with - Shafi Chowdhury (www.shaficonsultancy.com).
We’ll explore how it changed from being a freelance programmer only to building his company on the side. He had a great vision in mind, that drove him forward.
You’ll also hear about his approach to teaching and mentoring – or in general helping people do their job better. His abundance mindset inspires me a lot. Shafi explains, why and how he made his own job redundant in his own company.
Retention is a major cost driver and disrupts some companies a lot. You’ll learn how he manages to have nearly no turn-over in his company and how is approach to recruiting and training new employees fits in to this.
Further, we’ll cover how and why Shafi and his team is regularly presenting at different conferences. We’ll especially go deeper on this presentation at the PSI conference in 2017 about an amazing tool to analyse and visualize data at the same time. His approach to delivering all this innovation is very unique.
Finally, you’ll learn a lot about the leadership attitude, that helped him grow his business fast into a medium sized CRO with a very stable client base.
In this episode we share out ideas and experience, which mindset sets up statisticians for success. We cover topics around:
- Leading people
- Convincing business partners
- Delivering value and selling it - and what does selling means
- Thinking outside the status quo to improve things in the long run
- Always learning about the business and the people in the business
- Learning about statistical innovation
- Doing things more effectively
- Becoming more impactfully
- Raising your business acumen - internally and externally
- Having quality in mind
Quote of the Episode by Bill Gates “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
The guest in this episode represents the sponsor of this show - Nigel Howitt - current chair of PSI.
After a short introduction of Nigel and his experience with PSI, we will cover the following topics:
- How can someone, that is interested become a new PSI member?
- What rules are there for students?
- If you’re a data scientist in the pharma industry- is PSI the right association?
- How to get most out of PSI?
- What are the different ways, you can become more engaged within PSI?
- How can you get involved with one of the PSI committees?
- What’s the role of the SIGs and how do you get involved there?
- What Nigel is recommending new members of PSI as first steps?
- What are your highlights of the PSI conference in Amsterdam?
Finally, we'll also discuss how to get most out of the conference.
In this podcast episode, we tackle a difficult topic for a podcast, but Zak provides lots of expertise in this field and will introduce you to what visual analytics is and how it will help you.
Furthermore, we touch on questions like:
What is the difference that visual analytics plays in 'exploring/learning' and 'messaging'? Why is visual analytics important? Why should I care? How does the job of a statistician in visual analytics look like? Is visual analytics purely descriptive and exploratory in nature? What does the future of visual analytics in the pharma industry will bring? How can you implement these approaches in your day to day work? What tools are there for beginners, people with decent programming or advanced programming skills? What are the other places to learn more about Visual Analytics? (IEEE VIS: InfoViz, SciViz, and VAST; Flowing Data; Perceptual Edge) What you can expect from Zaks presentation at this years PSI conference in the wednesday morning session “A picture says more than 1000 tables- interactive data review using visual analytics”
If we think of world experts, we often think of people, that are candidates for the Nobel prize. We tend to have the believe, that we will never be able to achieve such a status. Actually most of us probably don’t even think about getting to this level.
This is why we are so happy to have Claire Brittain as our guest on the show. In an ordinary role of a statistician working in early phase, she has done outstanding work.
Listen to her story of how she came to be called a world expert on Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), a rare neurodegenerative disease.
This amazing story has lots of learnings for each of us.
Finally, Claire will present a poster about her work at the PSI conference in Amsterdam. Actually, it’s not just a poster, but listen to the episode and you’ll learn what’s so special there.
In todays episode, we take a look into the future - the future of PSI and how it will impact you. Both candidates, that run for becoming chair of PSI - Lucy Rowell and Naomi Givens - speak about their vision in our interview today.
Of course, this episode will help you to decide who to vote for, but it will also help you to understand how to benefit from PSI by becoming an active member. Both candidates share their stories of how they got more and more involved within PSI and how they were able to impact the world of statistics through PSI.
In more detail, we’ll cover the following topics in the episode:
Experience of the candidates with PSI Achievement at PSI and their current role on the board of directors for PSI Why do they want to become chair of PSI Changes to PSI, that the candidates would like to initiate The candidates visions for the future for PSI and how to get there
Do you have a lot of email ping-pong, where emails go back and forth many times – too many times?
Are you aware about the brand of you, that you communicate with your email style?
Is email your default communication tool?
Then this episode is for you. We have researched various articles on good email writing copies and distilled the best for you in this episode.
By listening to this episode, you will learn about:
When is email the best way to communicate? Approaches to attachments. How to take care of your style? How to structure your emails? About different email cultures Simple actionable tricks to improve your effectivity directly
Everybody uses email multiple times during the day and email represents a key communication channel. Managing the flood of emails effectively, will reduce your stress.
In this episode, we discuss various approaches, that we learned over the years from different productivity experts. We discuss how we implement them in our daily routines.
By listening to this episode, you’ll learn about these topics:
What are helpful mindsets about emails Five step approach to managing emails Good habits to establish like Reply in a timely manner Send and respond less to receive less. Tips on how to set up filters Smartphone vs desktop email checking When and when not to work on emails And the option of last resort
Data science, big data, business analytics … these are all buzz words in the industry at the moment and the hopes are high on what these areas will provide to our industry.
Cytel organized a long session about data science for the PSI conference 2018 in Amsterdam (learn more and register here).
In this episode, we’ll speak about:
Why is data science such a hot topic at the moment? How can we separate the different buzz words? Is this only something for google, amazon and such companies? What distinguishes a statistician from a data scientist? What are the biggest areas of impact for data science? What case studies are there, where data science had a profound impact? Which problems you might face? Which role do visualization approaches play in data science? What’s the difference between “machine learning” and “deep learning”? What would a statistician need to know, in order to compete in this field? Where are good resources for this (see also the Cytel blog here)?
Finally, we will dive into the sessions, which Cytel chairs as the main sponsor of the PSI conference. You’ll learn if this session is a good fit for you.
About Yannis Jemiai Yannis Jemiai has a pivotal role within Cytel, leading the company’s consulting and software business units, as well as the global marketing group. With Cytel Consulting he heads up an elite team of biostatisticians, skilled in applying the latest trial techniques and methods, to help our customers accelerate clinical development and mitigate portfolio risks.
Yannis also oversees the development of Cytel’s software product lines, including trial design packages East® and Compass®, and exact statistics applications StatXact® and LogXact®. Yannis guides global marketing efforts to raise the awareness of and uncover new opportunities for the company's growing range of clinical research services and specialized software.
His own research has been published in numerous statistical journals. Dr. Jemiai earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University, an M.P.H. from Columbia University, and a B.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology also from Harvard
About Rajat Mukherjee Rajat Mukherjee has 15 years of professional experience as an industry and academic statistician, and brings a range of expert knowledge to Cytel’s customers. This includes work in pattern recognition problems for devices and biomarker discovery, Bayesian clinical trials, adaptive designs, and design and analysis of complex epidemiological studies. His experience and expertise also includes statistical computing, survival analysis, longitudinal analysis, nonparametric and semiparametric inference, as well as statistical classification and high-dimensional data. Rajat has a strong background and interest in the development and implementation of statistical methodology with application to real life medical problems.
In this episode, we’ll cover Lucys story about her work within PSI and how it helped her to with her promotion. She shares tips and tricks to make it happen and we explore, what it takes to become an active PSI member.
Lucy is the conference chair for the PSI conference 2018 in Amsterdam. As such, we also talk about various hurdles and benefits of running such a large event. Lucy explains what you can expect from this years conference and how learnings from previous conferences are implemented.
Learn more about the details of the program etc and register for the PSI conference 2018 in Amsterdam here.
About Lucy Rowell Lucy has been an active member of the PSI Scientific Committee for 6 years and this is her final year as the conference chair! Lucy is currently embarking on a 50% rotation into the UK Affiliate, supporting early pipeline molecules, from either a Medical or Marketing perspective.
During her 15 years at Roche, Lucy has enjoyed a 6 month secondment to the US and worked in a number of disease areas including: inflammation, virology, metabolism, infectious diseases and oncology projects, across all phases of clinical development and has been involved in designing a wide variety of trial designs implementing both frequentist and Bayesian approaches.
When not in work, you will most likely find Lucy out listening to live music, walking her dog Buddy or curled up on the sofa reading a good book with a glass of vino.
Are you afraid of asking your supervisor for approval to travel to Amsterdam to attend the PSI conference?
Do you need convincing arguments for them to approve your travel?
In this episode, we talk about arguments, that help you in your discussion with your supervisor. We're talking specifically about the PSI conference 2018 in Amsterdam, but these points will very much be applicable for future PSI conferences as well.
You probably don’t want to tell them, that Amsterdam is a very nice city and the social activities will be lots of fun. But here are some arguments, that might help you to get the approval:
The conference is highly relevant to statisticians in the pharma industry. There are no ivory tower research sessions with little practical applications. All the topics were selected having statisticians in the pharma industry as the target audience in mind. 3 days packed with specialized content. Many of the sessions will help you to work more effectively in your job with higher quality outcomes. You will learn how other companies solve the same problems that you have. The vast majority of speakers are very experienced presenters, that will enable you to learn much more in shorter time. Lots of work is put especially into the many invited sessions, to compose the different presentations and give you a holistic experience of a session rather than a collection of vaguely related topics. There are a number of workshops during which you can learn hands-on skills to apply directly to your work. E.g. you can participate in a development and coaching session targeted especially for statisticians (not a general one, that any training company offers). During the informal breaks and at the social events in the evening you may meet with your clients (if you work for a CRO) or your vendors (if you work for pharma) and build relationship and trust. This will make current or future collaborations much easier. Alternatively, it may help to build future business relationships. Are you working on regulatory or HTA submissions? Many sessions and workshops will cover hot topics and after attending them, you will be better prepared for your high-impact contributions to these critical submissions for your business. You will also meet some staff from the HTA and regulatory bodies at the conference. Do your business partners don’t understand what estimands are? Do they have a hard time to understand the Bayesian concepts that you’re applying? Learn at the conference to better communicate about these topics from industry leads on these fields. This will help you to be more impactful during critical conversations with your business partners and you can provide examples of how others in the industry are solving problems.
8 Do you have a formal development plan? Put it in there and your supervisors will be happy that there is already something ticked for their HR deliverables. And if this is in-line with your business objectives – even better.
The conference is cheap compared to a DIA meeting or any international medical conference. Take further advantage of the early bird discount rate up to the 21st March 2018. You have a poster to be presented at the conference. Ok – this only works, if your supervisors approved the submission of the poster. But it is always something for them to sell upwards, that you’re an active contributor. The poster deadline is the 28th Feb 2018. Not every reason will work in every situation and with every supervisor. Try to understand, what goals your supervisor has and tailor these arguments towards these goals.
Register and find out more about the conference here!
Do you have more reasons to attend? Please leave a comment below.
In this episode, we discuss our experiences in working with various programmers and what we as statisticians can do, to create an environment, where we can work without major disruptions and too many stressful moments. We’ll cover topics such as:
How to increase mutual understanding How do delegate well The balance between specifications and workload Day to day activities to make life better
In this episode, we speak about one of the most important work relationships – the one with the physician. As a statistician we work with them in all kind of things on the job. They also might become great friends.
In the episode, we will cover the following topics:
Topics to increase the understanding where the physician is coming from such as How was he successful in his previous job – e.g. emergency room setting with command and follow setting to solve urgent crisis Hospitals and physician’s offices are built with the physician at the center as he is the bottle neck Has he even been a KOL before joining the company – that’ll make it hard for him to switch to a new culture Mindset and tactics to create a successful partnership such as Have 1:1s in which they you can answer their perceived “stupid” questions be a partner and not a service provider Present data together with the physician and show him, how you both can benefit How to become a more valuable partner to the physician by e.g. Provide draft conclusions based on analyses Learn his language as you encourage him to learn yours Have a physician as a mentor to learn how to best work with them Tips on how to give the physician insights into your job and that it is not a push the button exercise
In our first episode, we talk about
who is writing and talking here, if this podcast fits your needs and will help you, how the podcast will boost your career, and what our approach to podcasting is. Who is writing and talking here?
We’re Alexander Schacht and Benjamin Piske. We create and edit the content, in addition to managing our work lives, home lives and being continuous learners. We invite you to come and learn along with us to work more effectively, lead courageously, and solve problems innovatively.
Alexander Schacht I have studied mathematics and received my PhD in biostatistics on non-parametric statistics from the University of Göttingen in Germany. I authored more than 70 scientific manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals and regularly speak at international conferences – both statistical ones like PSI and medical ones like EADV. During my career at university and within the pharma industry, I have collected more than 20 years of experience.
My career focused mostly on phase III and IV (RCT, observational studies, HTA submission, commercialization work) with some regulatory work as well as some experience in the early phases of clinical development.
I’m interested in a broad range of methodological areas but specifically on making better decisions based on data. As such, I was the chair of the EFSPI/SPI SIG on benefit-risk for some time. PSI provided my with many more opportunities, which I’m happy to work on.
At work, I supervise of a small but mighty team of statisticians in a large pharma company. The virtual work environment requires me to adjust my communication style and focus on my ability to deliver results effectively.
I’m a happy husband and father of 3 wonderful kids, who I love to spend time with. In the rest of my time, I love running and listening to podcasts.
Benjamin Piske I got interested in statistics during my studies of mathematics at the university of Göttingen when I attended courses of statistics at the department of medical statistics. Focusing on non-parametric statistics, I completed my MSc in 2003 and continued to work at the department until starting with a global CRO in April 2004. I started as biostatistician in the phase IIIb/IV environment and worked on interventional and non-interventional late phase trials, commercialization work, publication / presentation support, registries and investigator driven trials in several therapeutic areas - mainly oncology, hematology and neurology – using a broad range of statistical methods. During the later stages of my career I also worked on phase II and phase III trials as well as submissions.
In 2008 I took over line management responsibility for a primarily remote team, and since then developed more and more into a senior position. I’m primarily working office based in our office in Berlin, Germany.
Besides the challenging job and the not less challenging family responsibilities with having 4 children, I love to travel, occasionally play squash, but more frequently record podcast episodes with Alexander :-)
Learn more about us in our first episode of the podcast and check out our linkedin profiles:
Alexander Benjamin Is this podcast for you? The Effective Statistician helps statisticians (or maybe data scientist) both at a junior and experienced level. We’ll cover topics relevant for those with and without administrative leadership positions. Our examples arise from the health sector mainly, but we assume, that statisticians or data scientists outside of this industry will surely benefit as well.
How will this podcast boost your career? Learning and following up on the topics in our podcast will help you to become more effective at work through:
learning about ongoing methodological discussions Applying better statistical methods building competency becoming a leader (with or without an administrative title) Influencing without authority Building your brand Getting the right things done effectively Collaborating effectively with