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The Pharma Career Ladder · The medical rep · Step 5: The visit · Lesson 13

Storytelling with a patient case

A case that lands in thirty seconds

By Ahmed El Menshawy · 20 years in pharma, from medical rep to country manager in the UAE. Founder of RepPharma. LinkedIn
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Doctors think in patients. So the fastest way into a doctor's head is a patient.

Research on why ideas stick found that people remember stories far better than statistics. For a medical rep, the natural story is a patient case. It needs four steps and about thirty seconds.

  • The patient: a type, never a real person. "A man in his fifties, newly diagnosed, with a busy job."
  • The problem: one he sees every week. "He stopped his last treatment because the dosing did not fit his day."
  • The turn: one approved point, nothing more.
  • The question: "Doctor, do you have patients like him?"

The last step matters most. It moves the story from your tablet into his clinic.

And never invent an outcome. Use approved patient profiles only.

“The doctor forgets the numbers but remembers the patient.”
Storytelling with a patient case: A case that lands in thirty seconds

Lesson 13 of 15 in Step 5: The visit, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.

More lessons in step 5: The visit

Lesson 1First thirty secondsWhat the doctor decides before you open the detail aidLesson 2Opening without a pitchThree openings that earn the next two minutesLesson 3The patient type openingNaming the patient before naming the brandLesson 4The question you never askFour kinds of question, and the one most reps skipLesson 5SPIN in a two minute callSituation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff, compressedLesson 6Listen twiceThe two-to-one rule between listening and talkingLesson 7Silence is a toolWaiting after a question instead of filling the gapLesson 8Reading the roomFour signals a doctor is finished before you areLesson 9What you say after the dataTurning a study into one sentence a doctor repeatsLesson 10Features, advantages, benefitsWhy reps stop at the featureLesson 11Three levels of a benefitThe patient, the practice and the doctor himselfLesson 12The value equationBenefit over cost, in the doctor's termsLesson 14Three minutes in a corridorStructuring a call you did not planLesson 15Group calls and lunch meetingsRunning a room without losing the individual

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