Pros
Getting 1-2 years of experience at ICA is great for your CV. Most employees that pass through ICA seem to follow this blueprint of using ICA as a springboard for their career (pretty much every month you'll get an email informing you that another Medical Writer is leaving for another opportunity). Other med comms agencies seem to view the experience at ICA quite positively, so it makes it easier to jump to better roles/opportunities.
Cons
The "Medical Writer" title is a bit disingenuous. The role at ICA is much more like a QC role rather than doing actual writing, and it gets completely mind numbingly boring. You spend maybe 20% of your time actually writing, and the rest just doing laborious referencing tasks. Pay is also well below industry averages. If you stay at ICA you'll be giving up significant lifetime career earnings compared to if you moved somewhere else. It's shocking that Senior Medical Writers at ICA make less than regular Medical Writers at most other agencies. As some others have mentioned, there is quite a bit of micromanaging, especially with time sheets. The expectation to have almost an entire 40 hours of billable work to clients is not normal at most agencies and means in practice you'll actually be working 50+ hour weeks.
