Pros
Merck is an excellent company with quality leadership.
Cons
However, this industry and company has changed dramatically. If you want to impact healthcare this is a great place to do it but understand there are significant challenges now that didn't exist just a few years ago: 1. R&D is harder and more expensive, 2. the public and most levels of government generally do not understand the complexity of healthcare at all and mostly think by simply passing a single piece of legislation all of healthcare's issues will be resolved (targeting pharmaceuticals), 3. access to providers is 4x harder than it was 10 years ago, and 4. the med-legal red tape just keeps getting deeper. Bottom line: this industry just went from "easy / moderate" to "stressful". This industry is about to shrink a little in headcount and become a little leaner and more efficient. The political climate may adversely impact the industry. Hopefully not.