Marcello Longo AboutPharma and Medical Devices February 2021 n. 185
"I see many clouds in the immediate future." Antonio Mazzarella, president of Fedaiisf (Federation of Italian drug sales representatives associations), is worried about the present and the future of the Isf. Of course, there has been no lack of efforts to react and reinvent the dialogue with the doctor or the good news, such as some regional initiatives to give priority to the category in the vaccination campaign or to recognize the status of 
healthcare professionals. But the Covid emergency has had a huge impact on the profession and the economic crisis has not yet shown all its effects.
Dr Mazzarella, what has been the impact of the pandemic on the work of the ISF?
The impact has been heavy in many respects. The activity was stopped, for many scientific representatives, from the first days of March 2020 and the stoppage lasted, for the vast majority, for over four 
months. This is weighed both in psychological terms (insecurity for the future) and professional terms (inability to have regular contact with the health professionals), but above all in economic terms with the risk of losing one's job. We think in particular of the many informants who work in the VAT number.
What has changed compared to the first days of the emergency?
The whole pandemic period, and still now, has been a continuous change. We have gone from the absence, or almost, of contact with the doctor in the very first phase, to phone calls to demonstrate closeness and solidarity, to the sending of information relating to Covid-19, to the first video calls, to the timid limited return of face-to-face visits , characterized by the utmost respect for safety measures (use of dpi, distancing). Today, in principle, we are able to have more contacts in person than a few months ago but less than in the pre-Covid period. Remote contacts (phone calls and video calls) have also increased, but essentially they have the function of making face-to-face appointments, so as to avoid the simultaneous presence in the waiting room with patients, or, at most, to transfer some important information on a drug.
What “lessons” can be drawn from this experience?
First of all, be ready, capable of reacting even to the imponderable and of collaborating with others, colleagues and non-colleagues. Scientists may have an advantage in this because they adapt and react to situations that are sometimes unthinkable every day. We are always out and about, we have contact with dozens of people a day, not just healthcare professionals. The pandemic has been the testing ground for this adaptability without which it would have been difficult to go on. Of course, the companies, in principle, have provided us with the necessary support and given instructions on "what to do". But it was thanks to the resilience of the Is/Isf that these indications became real activities in the field
On the anti-Covid vaccination for the ISF, the Regions are moving in no particular order. How is it going? What do you ask the institutions?
From 31 December onwards, some Regions (Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily, Puglia, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy) have resolved to include scientific representatives in the first band in the anti-Covid19 vaccination campaign. In the other Regions, Fedaiisf is working assiduously with the health departments to achieve the same result. We welcomed with great pleasure the approval of the Agenda by the Chamber of Deputies in which we will discuss extending the audience of Phase I recipients also to scientific representatives, with the result of making it applicable throughout the national territory. Meanwhile, in some Regions, vaccines have already been administered to some of the informants who have joined the campaign. We hope that this agenda will be discussed and then approved and quickly implemented. We ask the regional institutions, which have not yet expressed themselves on the matter, to speed up the deliberation times to encourage the vaccination campaign for us whistleblowers to guarantee personal and collective safety and for a gradual return to professional activity also to guarantee employment levels .
Vaccinations rekindle the spotlight on the issue of recognizing ISFs as health workers. Over the years, several proposals have been presented to Parliament. At the beginning of 2021 the Puglia Regional Council moved. What is your position?
In reality, in the past we have twice been very close to legal recognition of the profession with a register or a professional order. Only recently has there been talk of our inclusion in the health professions. About two years ago, we filed our request for the establishment of the register of scientific informants with the Ministry of Health, according to the Lorenzin law. Today, thanks to the Hon. Gabellone, in Puglia a regional law proposal has been filed for our inclusion among health professionals. Subsequently, the Apulian health councilor Prof. Lopalco made a commitment to set up a technical table with the aim of drafting an exhaustive and all-encompassing law proposal on the matter, thus also making up for a national deficiency. We are absolutely in favor of this process and hope that it will be a means of achieving the same possible result at national level
Still on the subject of recognition as healthcare workers, are there any other regional initiatives worth mentioning?
Currently, in almost all the Regions, FEDAIISF, in conversations with the responsible departments, has laid the foundations for the initiation of procedures in this sense.
A decade has just begun, how do you see the work of the ISF in the future? What role for digital?
I see many clouds in the near future. The freeze on layoffs has prevented them so far but as soon as the opportunity arises, I fear that many companies, not only in the pharmaceutical sector, will downsize their workforce. For whistleblowers, it will be necessary to avoid their transformation into workers with a VAT number, already too represented in this working environment, despite the legislation clearly inserting this professional figure employed by the scientific service and not by marketing. However, the pandemic has shown that the human relationship remains irreplaceable for which the scientific rep will remain an essential and central professional figure for the sector. The digital will be a means available to the professional that will allow him to contact the doctor even when it should not be possible, for various reasons, or to share information with him in a different way, not usable in presence. But it can never replace human contact. The doctor, regardless of his specialization, accepts the digital within very narrow limits. To make a comparison, social networks are very useful for maintaining contact with distant people or for finding friends with whom you have lost contact. But these systems increase the need to meet. A handshake is always more valuable than a like or an emoticon.
Courtesy of AboutPharma
