A profile no job title describes
The client was researching how skin recovers after extreme physical or psychological stress — burns, trauma, severe exhaustion, chemotherapy — and needed clinicians who see that interaction in practice rather than specialists who could speak to it in principle.
That ruled out the obvious search. Broad dermatology and plastic surgery profiles were explicitly excluded. What was needed instead was day-to-day exposure to stress-driven physiological dysregulation, trauma recovery, delayed skin repair, and the interaction between mental state and healing.
Eligible experience spanned five fields: dermatology and dermato-oncology, burn and post-trauma reconstructive care, psychiatry and psychology, rehabilitation, and integrative medicine in high-end recovery programmes. The client wanted coverage across the United States, Europe and Asia, and its own deadline required the interviews to happen inside about a week.
Screening on experience, not on the CV
Medcase translated the brief into a recruitment profile that defined the clinical experience required in each of the five fields — the point being to find clinicians whose expertise goes past their job title.
Every candidate was screened against five qualifying questions:
- The case types they see most often
- Their work with stress-, trauma- and recovery-related conditions
- Cases where stress or emotional overload affected healing or skin repair
- Inflammation cycles linked to stress or trauma
- How relevant the mind–body–skin interaction is in their own practice
Screening summaries went into a shared recruitment tracker alongside each candidate's professional background, mapped to the client's research questions. The client could judge fit on clinical experience rather than on a CV.
The candidate the client nearly passed on
One shortlisted clinician didn't look like an obvious fit on paper, and the client said so. Medcase sent her screening responses in support. She became the client's top-ranked choice.
That is the argument for screening on experience rather than credentials: the right expert for a cross-disciplinary question frequently does not look right on a CV.
Six candidates, four countries, three interviews
The shortlist covered the United States, the United Kingdom, India and Pakistan, across rehabilitation medicine, clinical psychology, psychiatry and dermatology. The client selected three experts against its own priorities.
Medcase handled candidate agreements, scheduling and time-zone coordination between Europe and the Americas. All three one-hour interviews were completed on the same day.
Engagement volume and timeline
Work package | Count |
|---|---|
Specialty areas defined for recruitment | 5 |
Regions targeted | 3 |
Vetted candidates presented | 6 |
Countries in the shortlist | 4 |
Expert interviews completed | 3 |
Interview length | ~1 hour |
Phase | Dates (2025) |
|---|---|
Client request | 24 November |
Scope confirmed | 27 November |
Recruitment and screening | 27 November – 3 December |
Candidates presented and client selection | 1–3 December |
Interviews completed | 4 December |
Scope confirmation to completed interviews: one week.
Results: three experts, one week
- Three clinical experts with specific cross-disciplinary experience recruited, screened, selected and interviewed within a week of scope confirmation.
- Six vetted candidates presented across four countries and four specialties.
- All three interviews completed on a single day, coordinated across European and American time zones.
- A candidate the client initially questioned became its top-ranked choice once her screening responses were reviewed.