An MSL leader messaged Sarah this week with a âfantasyâ football draft question:
"What do you think of PAs and NPs as part of MSL teams?"
Sarah's answer was fast: you can't build a best-in-class MSL team without them. Her first MSL team was all PharmDs, PhDs, and MDs. But across her recruiting years, leaders kept telling her the same thing: some of their best MSLs were the NPs and PAs on the roster.
So we asked the question to LinkedIn, and the whole 'league' showed up. 90+ of you weighed in: PharmDs, PhDs, NPs, PAs, genetic counselors, and nurses, all agreeing from different angles. One NP said it best: "In clinical practice, we were the KOLs."
This is where it gets interesting for us. Agreeing that an advanced practice provider (APP) is a great pick is the easy part. Turning that pick into a field-ready MSL is a different job entirely, and that second job is the one we do all day. Welcome to The Draft Issue.
Why We Love This Pick
An NP or PA walks into the role already knowing what it feels like to be the HCP on the other end of your outreach. They've been the person deleting the 3-paragraph email before it ever got read.
A physician in Medical Affairs put the value plainly in the comments: NPs and PAs "understand the patient perspective while communicating seamlessly with their physician care team."
We made the full case for NPs & PAs in our latest blog. 
Read it here
The Part Nobody Drafts For
The MSL field is full of proof that the mix works. One PharmD described co-presenting with her NP counterpart across the same territory: "She would bring the patient perspective; I would discuss the drug from the pharmacist perspective."
Another NP, now an MSL, said her clinical colleagues always opened up more with her because they could "shop talk a little more organically."
A brilliant clinician is not automatically a brilliant MSL. When a clinician steps into the field, we coach the same two transitions almost every single time:
From presenting like a clinician to presenting like an MSL. In clinic, you present to teach and to drive a treatment decision. You lead with your recommendation. In the field, the job is balanced, non-promotional, peer-to-peer scientific exchange. The instinct to recommend has to become the discipline to discuss. Same data, same passion, a very different job to do with it.
From a panel to a territory. In practice, patients come to you. As an MSL, the KOLs don't. That means call planning, prioritizing the right experts, and engaging on purpose instead of reacting to whoever answers first. Nobody builds that muscle in clinical training, so we build it in ours.
That's the whole idea behind our team training. Drafting a diverse roster wins you the upside. Coaching it up is how you actually cash it in. If you want your whole team coached through exactly these transitions, reply BEST, and we'll talk.
For the Rookies (Aspiring MSLs, especially APPs)
You're a high-upside pick. The trouble is, a great background can still get passed over when it interviews like a clinician instead of an MSL. The fix is learning to translate. Don't tell them you "managed complex patients." Show them you can turn a clinical story into a scientific exchange, read a room, and think in KOLs and territories.
We're teaching this next week.
Interviewing Like the Top 1%: The specific moves that separate the MSL candidates who get the offer from the equally qualified ones who don't.
For the GMs (Medical Affairs Leaders)
You drafted for different strengths on purpose. A field medical director in the comments said: "The degree is about what you do with it." So here's the way teams give those strengths right back: the performance review.
When reviews are vague, or worse, clearly written by AI, they flatten everyone into the same generic language. The NP's clinical read, the PhD's rigor, the PharmD's command of the data- all of it disappears into "consistently demonstrates strong performance." The people you hired for their difference feel the least seen, and those are the people who leave.
Writing a review that actually names what each person brings is a skill. So we're teaching it.
Performance Reviews Without Sounding Like AI: How to write reviews that are specific, human, and actually land, so your best and most different people know you see exactly what they add. đ Save your seat
Your Mira Prompt of the Week: Name What Your NPs and PA Bring
Leaders, this one's for you. It's easy to say a clinical background "adds value" and hard to say exactly how, in words you can use in a review, a shout-out, or a case to your own leadership. Let Mira do the heavy lifting. Open Mira (or ChatGPT) and try:
"Act as a Medical Affairs leadership coach. One of my MSLs is an NP (or PA) with a clinical background. Here are a few specific things I've watched them do well: [PASTE 2 TO 3 REAL EXAMPLES]. Help me name the exact strengths their clinical experience brings to the team- patient insight, provider credibility, real-world context- in concrete language I can drop straight into a performance review, a team recognition, or a case to my leadership for why this background matters. Keep it specific to what they actually did, not generic praise."
Two minutes, and the value you knew was there is finally on paper, in words you can share.
đ Postgame (TL;DR): The Draft Issue
â An MSL leader asked Sarah what we think of NPs and PAs on MSL teams. Our answer: you can't build a best-in-class team without them. The full case is in the blog.
â Agreeing they're great talent is easy. Getting a clinician field-ready is the real work, and it's ours: we coach the shift from presenting like a clinician to presenting like an MSL, and from a panel to a territory.
â Aspiring MSLs: a great background still has to interview like an MSL. Learn how next week at Interviewing Like the Top 1%. đ Save your seat
â Leaders: you drafted for difference, so don't let a generic or AI-written review erase it. Join Performance Reviews Without Sounding Like AI next week. đ Save your seat
â Want the whole team coached through the clinician-to-MSL transition? Reply BEST.
Drafting the talent is the easy part. Coaching it up is the whole game, and it's the part we love.
In your corner always,
Patrina, Sarah, Ralph & Jess
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