Critical Thinking

Organizing Functions

Our department has a great organizational structure that has to follow guidelines and codes to complete our job as a group. We consist of one vice president, two senior directors, one associate manager, one manager, and then the staff. Our staff is made up of senior coordinators and regular coordinators. The good part about our department is no matter where someone is on the totem pole; everyone helps out and takes an active part in our process.

Our group is kind of like an assembly line because as work moves along down the line, many hands have touched it and have done their part. I think that people don't realize what goes into getting a pharmaceutical product on the shelf. When you register in foreign markets, you are taking those arduous tasks and adding the requirements of that particular country. Unfortunately there is no harmonization in the regions that we service whereas the reference standards are different for each country. We have to keep lists of reference standards for each country and we update the list according to any changes that come up.

My job consists of many different jobs, and sometimes it may seem as though I am not organized, partly because my desk looks like a bomb went off. I can keep different tasks in my head and know needs to be done next with each project and where it is going from my desk. Sometimes I may handle as many as 15 projects a day at one time. I also update product safety reports, which come in weekly and have deadline as to when they are compiled and sent back. My job is to gather information from each of the markets noting