Reps

Les Arcs, March 2019

I''m loving the new working pattern of Monday and Tuesday only, except that last Friday I went to work for a training session on the software that goes with the Flash Glucose Monitoring sensor called the Libre (which I've written about before). The training was to be delivered by one of the company reps.

We are plagued by many reps, most of them annoying and unreliable, with a couple of shining examples of how it should be done. They are very rarely allowed in at any time other than lunchtime, when they are expected to provide lunch for us, and are very much judged on the quality of the food. The rep that bought sandwiches from the hospital canteen will not be coming back; Asda and Morrisons are tolerated; Sainsburys and Tesco are welcomed; and M&S and Waitrose are very much appreciated.

Most of the time they want to discuss a new product - it could be a medicine, or a device like a glucose meter - or some research that has proved the superiority of one of their products over its competitors. The nurses show some interest because one of them is able to prescribe, although 99% of the time we have no influence over what patients are given because that is the doctor's job (and the doctors seldom have time to join us for lunch). I just eat the lunch and sometimes learn something.

A few of the reps are memorable - the one who showed us pictures of the enormous house that he and his family are building from scratch, the one who always brings wonderful Indian food like samosas and chicken tikka, the one who used to be a Dietitian before she became a rep and really knows what she's talking about. Others are terrible - one company whose products we actually want to use has not managed to retain a rep for more than a couple of months at a time since the last one left in questionable circumstances three years ago.

Another rep was in a relationship with one of the doctors, which was frankly unethical and corrupt. Since the doctor stopped working with us and they are no longer a couple her sales figures must have plummeted, but she continued to call on us without invitation and try to rearrange our shelves and cupboards to favour her products, looking increasingly unkempt, and on one occasion at an evening meeting we were fairly sure she was drunk. At one lunch she started to challenge us about why our patients are on someone else's medication rather than one of hers, and eventually she was asked to go away, and we told the company that we no longer wanted her to visit us. A pity in one respect, because she was a Waitrose shopper.

The Libre rep used to be very unreliable - late, disheveled, and lunch from Asda. Before the Libre was prescribable the company offered to set some people up on a two-week trial, so we duly contacted patients and had about twenty booked in for a group session. On the morning of the session the rep told us she couldn't come, and couldn't even offer a rescheduled date. The patients, some of whom had taken time off work and couldn't be notified of the cancellation in time, still occasionally remind us of this when they are feeling grumpy, since they don't necessarily appreciate that it was not us who cancelled.

Eventually the company was told that while we were very interested in their product, we were not going to tolerate this situation any longer and we wanted a different rep. They obliged, and for some time all has gone well. The teaching session last Friday was supposed to be delivered by the new rep, except that we were notified that morning that she was unwell, and the old rep arrived. Late. Looking like she'd been dragged through a hedge backwards. She took a few items out of the bag for our lunch (Tesco), but unaccountably took most away with her again. She didn't have the right cables to do a presentation using our projector, so we had to squint at her small laptop screen. The content wasn't what we had asked for - and then she announced that she had been assigned to us and was coming back because the new rep is being moved elsewhere.

Well. After an uncomfortable silence one of our lead DSNs told her to her face that this was not acceptable, that we had asked for a different rep and we jolly well weren't prepared to have her back, and pointed out that even on this occasion she had arrived late without all the equipment she needed. It was a tremendous and brave performance.

So with luck we won't see that rep again. But I wouldn't bet on it.

June 2018