holes through the stomach lining."
I lit her cigarette. She inhaled deeply, held it in, and said through closed teeth, "What's a detail man?"
"Drug pusher. I'm a pharmaceutical salesman for Lee Laboratories, and my territory includes Key West, Palm Beach, and all of Dade County. I'm supposed to see forty doctors a week and tell them about our products. I brief them, or 'detail'' one or more of our products, so they'll know how to use them."
"There're a lot of drug companies, aren't there?"
"Sure. And a lot of detail men, and a lot of doctors. But my job, especially for Lee Labs, is one of the best jobs in the world, if not the best. I work about five hours a week, when I work at all, and I make a decent living."
"How can you call on forty doctors in five hours?"
"You can't. I fake it, turning in my weekly report from the info in my files. Also I telephone from time to time—the doctors' secretaries—to make sure the doctor hasn't died on me since the last time I actually called on him. But I can usually make ten or fifteen personal calls in an afternoon when I want to. And if I set up a drugs display for one day in a hospital or medical building, that counts as forty calls for the week. I like my work, though, and I'm really a good salesman. I feel sorry for doctors, the poor overworked bastards, and I like to help them out."
"Do they always let you in? Just like that?"
"Most of them do. There are three kinds of doctors, you see. It's impossible for a doctor to read everything put out by the drug companies on every drug, but a few try. They all need a detail man to explain what a drug does, its contraindications, and so forth. So one doctor refuses to see detail men, and reads all of the literature, or tries to, himself. Another doctor never reads anything, but depends entirely on a detail man to brief him. The third kind doesn't read anything or see any detail men either. And if you happen to get this guy for a doctor, your chances for survival are pretty damned slim."
"So they see you, then?"
"Most of them, but you can't always overcome their prejudices or their ignorance. For example, I might ask a doctor, 'What do you know about migraine?' Half the time, he'll tell me that migraine headaches are psychosomatic, and that you can't do anything for them. He doesn't want to listen, you see. His mind is made up. ln a case like that, you say, 'Okay,' and get onto something else. But when you're lucky, you'll run into an intelligent doctor, and he'll say, 'I don't know a damned thing about migraine. I get four or five cases a week, and I can't do anything for them.'
"So then you tell him. It so happens that we've got a product that reduces or even stops migraine headaches. What happens, you see, is that tension, or something, nobody knows what it is exactly, causes the blood veins in your temples to constrict. Now this isn't migraine, not yet. But these veins can't stay constricted too long because you've got to get blood to your head. What happens, pressure builds, and the man can feel his migraine coming on. Then, all of a sudden, the tight veins open up and a big surge of blood gushes through these open vessels, and there's your migraine headache. What our product does is keep the veins closed. They open eventually, but gradually, slowly. Without the sudden surge of released blood, the headache is either minimized or it doesn't come."
"How did you learn all that?"
"Well, in this case, we had a two-day conference in Atlanta, with all of the detail men from Lee Labs in the Southeast present. We had a doctor who has spent his life studying migraine. He briefed us, and our own company research men who finally developed the drug briefed us. We had two films, and then some Q. and A. periods. Then we all got drunk, got laid, and flew back to our own
I lit her cigarette. She inhaled deeply, held it in, and said through closed teeth, "What's a detail man?"
"Drug pusher. I'm a pharmaceutical salesman for Lee Laboratories, and my territory includes Key West, Palm Beach, and all of Dade County. I'm supposed to see forty doctors a week and tell them about our products. I brief them, or 'detail'' one or more of our products, so they'll know how to use them."
"There're a lot of drug companies, aren't there?"
"Sure. And a lot of detail men, and a lot of doctors. But my job, especially for Lee Labs, is one of the best jobs in the world, if not the best. I work about five hours a week, when I work at all, and I make a decent living."
"How can you call on forty doctors in five hours?"
"You can't. I fake it, turning in my weekly report from the info in my files. Also I telephone from time to time—the doctors' secretaries—to make sure the doctor hasn't died on me since the last time I actually called on him. But I can usually make ten or fifteen personal calls in an afternoon when I want to. And if I set up a drugs display for one day in a hospital or medical building, that counts as forty calls for the week. I like my work, though, and I'm really a good salesman. I feel sorry for doctors, the poor overworked bastards, and I like to help them out."
"Do they always let you in? Just like that?"
"Most of them do. There are three kinds of doctors, you see. It's impossible for a doctor to read everything put out by the drug companies on every drug, but a few try. They all need a detail man to explain what a drug does, its contraindications, and so forth. So one doctor refuses to see detail men, and reads all of the literature, or tries to, himself. Another doctor never reads anything, but depends entirely on a detail man to brief him. The third kind doesn't read anything or see any detail men either. And if you happen to get this guy for a doctor, your chances for survival are pretty damned slim."
"So they see you, then?"
"Most of them, but you can't always overcome their prejudices or their ignorance. For example, I might ask a doctor, 'What do you know about migraine?' Half the time, he'll tell me that migraine headaches are psychosomatic, and that you can't do anything for them. He doesn't want to listen, you see. His mind is made up. ln a case like that, you say, 'Okay,' and get onto something else. But when you're lucky, you'll run into an intelligent doctor, and he'll say, 'I don't know a damned thing about migraine. I get four or five cases a week, and I can't do anything for them.'
"So then you tell him. It so happens that we've got a product that reduces or even stops migraine headaches. What happens, you see, is that tension, or something, nobody knows what it is exactly, causes the blood veins in your temples to constrict. Now this isn't migraine, not yet. But these veins can't stay constricted too long because you've got to get blood to your head. What happens, pressure builds, and the man can feel his migraine coming on. Then, all of a sudden, the tight veins open up and a big surge of blood gushes through these open vessels, and there's your migraine headache. What our product does is keep the veins closed. They open eventually, but gradually, slowly. Without the sudden surge of released blood, the headache is either minimized or it doesn't come."
"How did you learn all that?"
"Well, in this case, we had a two-day conference in Atlanta, with all of the detail men from Lee Labs in the Southeast present. We had a doctor who has spent his life studying migraine. He briefed us, and our own company research men who finally developed the drug briefed us. We had two films, and then some Q. and A. periods. Then we all got drunk, got laid, and flew back to our own
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