Ana Quinn joins the growing team at IMed ahead of our 9th Birthday

Meet Ana Quinn – by Al Mills

Yes that’s right; IMed’s growing team increases by one today, in the form of Ana Quinn, our new RA and Clinical Specialist Consultant on 1^st June, just 5 days before we’ll be singing Happy Birthday to our business after 9 years in the industry!

I caught up with Ana last week, during her 2 official days of rest before the excitement of her IMed induction week, to find out more about her and how she ended up in the Clinical side of Regulatory Affairs;

‘I started my working life in a lab; with food and pharmaceuticals. This was where I started getting involved with notified bodies and audits and I became interested in the re-writing of SOPs.’

After showing a clear aptitude for this kind of work, Ana was offered an opportunity in the RA medical writing team and took right to it.

‘So then I was hooked and, with a degree in biomedical sciences (applied to microbiology), I was absolutely in my comfort zone, progressing ultimately to a senior role. I also continued to study, completing my Masters, in Clinical Microbiology in 2020. The research project I focused on, for my dissertation, concerned the assessment of bioburden validation studies on medical products; evaluating different methods, their efficacy, challenges and limitations. It was super-interesting and, with luck, my paper should be published later this year.’

I asked Ana for more detail on her most recent work?

‘As a Senior Medical Writer at NAMSA, I authored numerous Clinical Evaluation Reports (CERs) – often as technical Lead – following through between the plan and the report itself; liaising closely with clients and (on their behalf) with all the notified bodies too. I dealt with issues like non-conformities, MDD/MDR transitions, PMS plans (for entire product ranges in some cases), as well as PSURs. I also got to be involved with the development of the actual PSUR templates, which was a real privilege.’

So, what’s the attraction to Ana of QA/RA/Clinical?

‘I suppose I find it rewarding, because I feel like I’m helping patients in a real way – making sure that whatever treatment they need – the devices necessary have been through a proper, rigorous process, to evidence the benefit to the patient and their general safety. I’m very keen on anything to do with risk management and investigation/analysis of the risk process. I suppose I’m a real Sleuth at heart and embrace any kind of investigation – be it finding/comparing similar devices or scouring the planet for evidence of performance or incident reports. And I adore research! For instance; sterilisation is one of my favourite areas – I’m afraid that’s the microbiologist in me escaping. What can I say? I just love working with bugs! (microbes, that is….).

Ana told me that IMed appealed to her, because we have the same ambition/ethos as she does; helping patients with safety and benefit as the key drivers. But she has a lot more she wants to achieve going forward with IMed;

‘I’m interested in so many emerging innovative devices – particularly med-tech and devices which focus on bringing pre-emptive diagnoses even further forward. I hope to get the opportunity to work with such devices soon.‘

IMed is a very people-centric organisation, so I asked Ana a bit more about her personal background and a rather interesting picture began to emerge;

‘I currently live in Tamworth but am originally from Portugal. I met my English husband back in 2011, in a dungeon. Seriously! I am a geek to the core and a committed gamer. So, we really did meet in a dungeon – virtually at least – playing World of Warcraft (WOW). I was still living in Portugal at the time and we didn’t meet in person, until I got a job here in the UK in 2012. We both ended up going to the same Uni and finally got married in 2017. We still game, playing WOW, Valorant (we’ve attained a Gold Ranking but are working hard to improve on this!) and League of Legends.

We can get quite carried away sometimes and were horrified to discover that our neighbours had overheard some of our more excited verbal exchanges, whilst in battle, through the walls. Luckily, they see the funny side of our hobby and say that they are always cheering for me if we are ever in combat! ‘

There’s no need to be afraid of IMed’s latest edition ‘war strategist’ though, as Ana has a calmer, creative side too; enjoying painting, drawing and all arts and crafts at home. And, as if it were in any way a surprise to those that know the IMed team and our obsession with our animals, Ana brings another pet to the IMed family too; ‘Sir Rufus II’ is a ‘Chorkie’ – which is a Chihuahua / Yorkshire Terrier cross!

We are really delighted to welcome Ana (and Rufus) into the IMed fold. Do look out for her upcoming series of CER blogs on our website, or if you want to ask a Clinical/RA question ahead of these, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.