Medical Science Director

Careers That Change Lives

The Medical Science Director will be the functional manager of the Surgical Operating Unit Global Clinical Evidence Team, integrating the functionally relevant needs of the four business units within (Robotic Surgical Technologies [RST], Advanced Surgical Technologies [AST], General Surgical Technologies [GST], and Digital Technologies [DT]). The Medical Science Director will interface with the leadership of other cross-functional teams to ensure alignment of business needs with the Clinical Evidence Team’s goals and priorities. In addition, the Medical Science Director will manage the Team’s cost center, budget, and resource forecasting, with support from the Program Manager.

The Medical Science Director will establish and maintain solid relationships with external Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), as well as internal cross-functional leaders to ensure consistent delivery of impactful, evidence-based scientific messages across distribution channels. This is a dynamic opportunity in which the ideal candidate will possess advanced scientific knowledge, executive presence and communication skills,  robust peer-reviewed publishing proficiency, and personnel management experience. Moreover this individual will be expected to lead cross-functional collaborations, clearly communicate strategy and deliverable expectations, manage team resources, and remove barriers to ensure the Medical Science Team can complete projects in a timely manner. This position’s focus will be global in nature and will report directly to the Vice President, Clinical Research.

Surgical employees believe that every patient around the world deserves access to quality care and improved outcomes. Driven by our Mission, we believe that surgical robotics can add value to the healthcare ecosystem, lessen variability, and help more people around the world get better, faster.

We're making that exciting future possible — and disrupting one of the biggest and fastest growing markets in healthcare — with a game-changing portfolio of robotic and data & analytics technologies, services, and solutions.

What does it take to be a leader at Medtronic? We look for inspiring and inclusive leaders who partner with others, knowing that diverse talent, skills, and perspectives lead to better outcomes.  

Location: Remote with the ability to travel up to 25%, including international travel

A Day in the Life

• Strategic and operational leadership of the Medical Science Team to generate and disseminate evidence-based scientific messages to support the short- and long-term clinical evidence strategies of the Surgical business units (RST, AST, GST, and DT)
• Lead and drive synergies across scientific communications, external research program (ERP) and collaborative research to ensure scientific rigor and strategic leadership from the Surgical operating unit.
• Establish strong collaborative relationships and work in close partnership with key stakeholders internally (e.g. HEOR, Communications, product teams, clinical teams, biostats) and externally (e.g. opinion leaders, patient advocacy groups, professional societies); maintain and enhance the reputation of the Surgical operating unit with customers globally.
• Build and lead a cross-functional governance forum to identify and prioritize global post-market evidence needs and oversee development of an integrated evidence generation and publications roadmap across each of the Surgical business units (RST, AST, GST, and DT) – driving alignment on priorities and key decisions.
• Recruit, retain, and develop talent by fostering an inclusive, engaged team environment. Provide training, oversight, coaching, and accountability to ensure exceptional representation of the Medical Science team internally and externally.
• Maintain evidence subject matter expertise around the Surgical OU portfolio of products, and develop a team with robust knowledge and awareness of the competitive and relevant landscapes to provide scientific input to business stakeholders across the product lifecycle.
• Co-chair the External and Collaborative Research board and ensure decisions on new projects are made in compliance with applicable SOPs and in alignment with research areas of focus, considering scientific merit and business impact.
• Ensure alignment of evidence dissemination plans with the current business objectives; the disseminations plans will incorporate preclinical, clinical, medical education, marketing, regulatory approval and health economic components
• Support the Medical Science Team as needed, including, but not limited to, breaking down barriers and ensuring sufficient resourcing, developing impactful evidence-based scientific messages for the business, ensuring alignment with the high-level business strategy plans, and supporting dissemination of consistent messages through all distribution channels (e.g., podium presentations, publications, Marketing materials, Sales Training, Public Relations/Investor Relations, and Medical Education)
• Support the Medical Science Team as needed to develop evidence dissemination plans for Operating Unit-managed scientific congresses/conferences and represent Medical Science in congress/conference planning meetings to ensure optimization of evidence distribution strategy and delivery of consistent scientific messages
• Support the Medical Science Team as needed to complete scientific communications deliverables including, but not limited to, scientific abstracts, manuscripts, poster presentations, oral presentations, late-breaking trial presentations, and internal presentations for development and submission
• Provide ongoing surveillance of the literature (therapy-specific, and competitive), and congress coverage/recaps (summaries of critical presentations, live cases)
• Disseminate key findings of any major data releases to internal and external stakeholders as appropriate through email blasts and literature review calls
• Maintain an internal library of slides and publications available upon request for internal and external stakeholders
• Provide subject-matter expertise to support the review of downstream materials through established processes (Global Ad Pro review, etc)
• Ensure all scientific communications deliverables are completed with the highest levels of rigor, ethics, and accepted best practices by following company SOPs and industry guidelines (GPP, ICMJE, COPE, etc).
• Identify, screen, and manage the financial and contractual aspects of assigned projects to external medical writing vendors to obtain high quality, impactful scientific deliverables
• Develop, track, and report on reach and impact metrics related to evidence dissemination, strategy development, and execution to Clinical Research and Medical Science senior staff and executive business leadership
• Communicate as needed to executive leadership on any external research project or publication request involving the business’s products or clinical evidence
• Review publications, slide presentations, and other scientific materials for content and positioning
• The Medical Science Director will be responsible for following the Medtronic Code of Conduct, the Clinical Research & Medical Science Department Operating Procedures, and the ICMJE, GPP3, and ADVAMED guidelines