10 Physician Data Fields for Better Targeting Beyond Specialty and City

A physician directory contains much more than just names and cities. Most physicians will sort by names and cities only. One letter goes to a new family doctor and another to a senior surgeon with an attached hospital post. Neither will read the letters.

One field was deliberately left out of the list. The data includes gender. Personalizing the message rarely helps, and a campaign that uses it looks suspicious to the physician who receives it.

SCOTT’s MD Select physician directory contains more than 91,000 Canadian physicians, surgeons, and nurse practitioners. Each entry includes additional physician directory data specific to the physician’s specialty and location, beyond basic personal information. The following ten fields are especially useful for targeting physicians. They build on the coverage and compliance basics in our guide to Canadian physician directories and databases.

1. Subspecialty Shows What Each Doctor Treats Every Day

Most teams search a physician directory by specialty first. Then it flows into the natural context. Specialty is a broad term. Internal medicine has several areas, and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada lists adult cardiology as a subspecialty of internal medicine.

A subspecialty filter will find those who focus on a particular facet. The list narrows to those who handle the target area daily. This filter should be used if the product is targeting a specific audience.

2. Medical Interests Point to the Topics They Follow

Two doctors share a specialty. One lists diabetes care as an interest. The other lists sports medicine. They want different content.

SCOTT’s MD Select keeps medical interests as its own profile field. Group doctors by topic. Then match each group to the right study, event, or product sheet.

3. Graduation Year in a Physician Directory Shows Career Stage

A doctor who graduated in 2023 has different needs from those who graduated in 1990. This physician will open a practice, choose suppliers, and join clinic groups. Senior doctors often teach or head a department.

Graduation year is one of the physician directory search filters in SCOTT’s MD Select. The site reports more than 3,000 GPs and specialists start practices every year. These doctors’ offers relate to starting a new practice.

One out of four physicians in the Ontario physician directory is 60 or older. Retirements are changing who reps call next year. Therefore, career stage is important for planning too.

4. School and Country of Graduation Add Context

Each profile includes the university graduated from, plus the year and country of graduation. Public registers rarely include these details, a key factor in licensing versus building a physician list.

Use this field for alumni events, research outreach tied to a school, or programs for doctors new to practicing in Canada.

Use it sparingly, however, as the training environment provides little or no insight into current requirements.

5. Hospital and University Appointments Show Who Shapes Practice

Some doctors hold a hospital post, a faculty role, or an industry appointment. They teach residents, run departments, and sit on committees.

The directory records industrial, hospital and university appointment details. Use them to identify expert voices for advisory boards, research partners, or speaker programs, but expect a short list and slow responses, given the many requests these doctors receive.

6. Degrees and Fellowships Signal Extra Training

The letters after a doctor’s name tell a story. FRCPC and FRCSC are designations from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, whereas CCFP is a designation from the College of Family Physicians of Canada. Regulators check credentials like these against their data as part of how physician records are built and verified.

The term fellowship denotes a few additional years spent in one specific field. Don’t give these physicians introductory material; give them something more clinically advanced.

7. Prescriptions Per Day Help Pharma Teams Rank a Physician Database

SCOTT’s MD Select profile contains the quantity used per prescription. It can sort a long list of items into prioritized groups. Representatives can call on those in the highest category first. Mailing and emailing can handle the remainder.

This approach has a problem. A high volume indicates the physician writes many prescriptions in one region but doesn’t have a strong need for another product outside that area. Cross this field with areas of interest or medical specialties.

8. Languages Spoken: Match the Message to the Reader

Canada has two official languages, English and French. Many physicians also serve patients in Punjabi, Mandarin, Arabic, and other languages.

French material should go to French-speaking physicians. Patient handouts should be in the languages used at the clinic. Patients read a letter in their own language.

9. Postal Code Draws Tighter Territories Than City

City lines rarely match sales territories. Postal code filters fix this.

The first three characters of a Canadian postal code form the forward sortation area, or FSA. Canada Post uses a 0 as the second character to mark rural areas. K0A, for example, covers rural communities near Ottawa.

Build territories by FSA. Pull rural doctors apart from urban ones. 7% of physicians work in rural Canada, so plan a separate approach for this small group.

10. Mailing Address, Phone and Fax: Turn Segments Into Campaigns

Contact fields decide how a team reaches each segment. Profiles include mailing address and telephone, plus fax where available. Many clinics still use fax for referrals and forms.

Turn segments into a repeat campaign:

1. Pick two or three physician database fields from this list.
2. Name each segment in plain words, such as “rural FSA, French, cardiology.”
3. Give each segment one channel.
4. Write down the filter set, so the next campaign starts from the same base.
5. Refresh the list before every send.

Step five matters most. Records change as doctors move, retire, or open new clinics. Read how physician data goes out of date to set a refresh rhythm.

Which Physician Data Fields Improve Targeting?

The 10 fields are subspecialty, medical interests, graduation year, school and country of graduation, hospital and university appointments, degrees and fellowships, prescriptions per day, languages spoken, postal code, and contact channels. Pick two or three per campaign.

Search more than 91,000 physicians, surgeons, and nurse practitioners by the fields in this guide. Start a SCOTT’s MD Select free trial today.

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