EMWA’s Newsletter – June 2024

Dear Readers,

EMWA’s 57th conference in Valencia has come and gone, and what a nice affair it was ?? With a record near 500 attendees, including in-person and online, we had many excellent presentations, opportunities to reconnect with old colleagues and forge new acquaintances.

Read on to discover the updates from the various groups.

Happy reading!

Geoff Hall Scholarships

Two scholarships have been created in memory of one of the founding fathers of EMWA, Geoff Hall, who sadly passed away in 2010. Geoff was not only a founding member of EMWA, but was also a past president, wrote the original EMWA constitution, was an extremely experienced workshop leader, and a stalwart of the social scene. Geoff felt very strongly that the future of EMWA lies with younger members joining and moving through the organisation to become workshop leaders and members of the EMWA committees, and so the scholarships are an ideal way to honour Geoff and his huge contribution to EMWA.

During the Opening Session in Valencia, Lisa Chamberlain James announced this year’s winners. The title of their essay was “Can scientific documents be easy to read?” and the scholarship winners were Florencia Garro and Louisa Ludwig-Begall. Florencia's and Louisa's winning essays are presented in the June issue of MEW. Next year’s essay competition is now open, the title is "What value does medical writing bring to the study team?" The submission deadline for entries is 30 September 2024. For more information, please visit this page.

CORE Reference

Check out the?April 2024?list of ICH, EMA (including CTR and CTIS), FDA and other regional guidances; best practice documents; and other tools and resources supporting clinical trial reporting; transparency and disclosure of clinical documents; real world data and artificial intelligence/machine learning in the regulation of medicines. The CORE Reference NewsSummary encompasses medicines, vaccines and devices; information is archived (including the May 2024 NewsSummary in the coming days) at:?https://www.core-reference.org/news-summaries/. Sign up for the bi-monthly email service here:?https://www.core-reference.org/subscribe.

Veterinary Special Interest Group

Our 2nd quarter Meet&Share will be held on Friday, June 14th (2.30 pm, Central European Summer Time).

The topics are AI (follow-up to the Valencia conference), veterinary digital medicine (please feel free to contact us if you want to contribute to the discussion), and an outreach idea (advice for veterinary medical writers of the future). If you would like to join the meeting, or want more information about our SIG, please email [email protected]. We look forward to seeing you!

Medical Devices Special Interest Group

The MD-SIG had an informal gathering during the Valencia conference, chatting, exchanging the newest, and some of us meeting for the first time F2F.

In the upcoming months, there will be a few changes in the core team of the MD-SIG. Raquel Billiones has stepped down and? was replaced by Azza Gramoun. We thank Raquel for all her commitment and contributions and hope to keep her in the MD-SIG as a supporting member for a long time. The two co-chairs, Beate Walter and Namrata Upadhyay, will switch their responsibilities due to personal reasons. Beate will however stay co-chair and in the core team.

Anyone who is interested to join the MD-SIG is welcome to send a mail to: [email protected] - with their membership number for confirmation - and can join our monthly calls, every first Friday of the months at 11 am CET.

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EMWA Professional Development Committee Webinar

Our next webinar will focus on?Freelancing – the “A to Z” – my experiences and will be presented by?Beate Walter.

In this webinar, we will discuss the common issues every freelancer faces and solutions for them. The speaker, Beate Walter, will also discuss all the practical considerations of freelancers, from defining the scope of work to creating a quotation, estimating project timelines and managing payments.

The target audience is medical writers already freelancing,?as well as writers considering moving into freelancing.

To register, please?click here. For more information about the webinar content, visit?https://www.emwa.org/education/emwa-webinars-programme-2024/

We look forward to seeing you!

Kind regards,

EMWA webinar team

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EMWA Translators Subgroup

The EMWA Translators subgroup (part of the MedComms SIG) is having its second Meet & Share! Join us on Thursday 11th July, 3pm to 4:30pm CET. At this Meet & Share we will be joined by Ann Marie Boulanger, Emi Pell and Karen Tkaczyk, authors of articles from the March MW issue on translation.

Authors will talk about their articles, their perspectives on the translation landscape, and explore further aspects of their topics. There will be a Q&A after the panel, where attendees can ask questions and share their own experiences. A great opportunity to 'get to know' our authors. You don't have to be a translator to attend! Everyone is welcome. If you're interested in translation, interpreting or work with languages in general then this Meet & Share is for you.

Please?click here?to register.

Freelance Business Group News

Freelance Business Forum – 2024 Spring Conference in Valencia

The Freelance Business Forum had 87 registered participants and many conference attendees who decided to join in. The session was hosted by Adriana Rocha, who presented the Freelance Business Group and its activities.

Angela Potts from Pharmalancers, a professional platform connecting freelancers and clients, spoke about trends in the industry relevant to medical writing. Afterwards, there was a panel discussion about hybrid work – combining freelancing with part-time employment –, with medical writers from across Europe. Kfir Lapid (Germany), Cherry Malonzo Marty (Switzerland), and Johanna Chester (Italy) spoke about their own experiences as hybrid workers, and Angela Potts (UK) joined in to share the client’s perspective. The discussion highlighted the pros and cons of hybrid work and its variability across European countries regarding sociocultural perception, work availability, medical/professional insurance, and tax requirements.

The roundtable discussions were moderated by expert freelancers from various backgrounds: Nora Rauhala, Jackie Johnson, Ana Sofia Correia, Jen Lewis, and Sara Rubio.

These discussions covered essential aspects of getting started and succeeding as a freelance medical writer, such as strategies for finding new clients and maintaining these professional relationships, as they can be a source of recurring work. LinkedIn was singled out as a great way to showcase expertise, build a professional network, and find new leads, while different software options were suggested, like design tools to help design a professional brand.

Getting started as a freelancer and setting rates is usually difficult, but consulting values in medical writers’ surveys is a good place to start, like EMWA's 2023 freelance business survey. Also, stepping into a new field like medical devices comes with its own must-know regulations, so it is important to keep up-to-date, using resources such as EMWA workshops and relevant professional societies.

We thank all the volunteers who kindly shared their time and expertise, as the Freelance Business Forum would not happen without them.

We look forward to seeing you virtually at the November conference. If you have any suggestions or topics you would like to promote, please let us know via our LinkedIn group EMWA Freelance Business Forum – online.

Freelancing journal section

June 2024 will welcome the first article in the newly renamed Freelancing section of the Medical Writing journal - previously Out On Our Own (OOOO).

We are off to a great start, as this first article comes from Laura A. Kehoe, the previous Chair of the Freelance Business Group. Laura looks back at her 6 years of activities in the group, describing the freelance activities and initiatives at EMWA.

Contributions for the Freelancing section are welcome, so get in touch at [email protected].

Adriana Rocha, Freelancing Section Editor – Medical Writing Journal

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Ambassador Programme News

The EMWA Ambassador Programme is continuing its efforts to reach out to new audiences to promote medical writing and EMWA and has supported the following events.

On 8 May 2024, Abe Shevack represented the Ambassador Programme at a “Speed networking” session during the all day Getting into Medical Writing event at the EMWA conference in Valencia.

Abe spoke with several groups at 5-minute intervals explaining and answering questions about the Ambassador Programme. There was a lot of lively discussions and it was great fun to meet so many new people attending an EMWA conference for the first time.

On 21 May 2024 Andrea Rossi (past EMWA President gave a presentation on Careers in Medical Writing and the benefits of joining to 28 first year master students in the Scientific Biomedical Communication Programme at La Sapienza University in Rome.

The presentation was very well received with many questions about the EMWA educational programme and a number of requests for information on EMWA membership especially in light of the reduced rates for students. Interest was also expressed in the Autumn Conference, the Geoff Hall Scholarship, the results of the EMWA salary survey (especially for Italy), and joining the Italian LinkedIn group and the Italian LEG.

There was also a discussion post presentation on introducing training on medical writing and scientific communication at future meetings. Andrea has been invited to give a presentation on February 25 next year at the University of Sienna and future training meetings are planned at the University of Milan in October 2024.

Elizabeth Johnston-Young (a new contact) has agreed to be an exhibitor for EMWA at a career event for life science students at Queen Margaret University near Edinburgh. Date to be announced.

On 15 November 2024, Catherine Heddle and Maria Ko?towska-H?ggstr?m (immediate past EMWA President) will represent EMWA at the next Aula Medica Chase Career Conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

If you are an experienced medical writer and EMWA volunteer and are interested in becoming an EMWA Ambassador or if you know of any upcoming career events in your locality please contact the EMWA Head Office ([email protected]) or Abe Shevack ([email protected]).

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News from the Portuguese Medical Writers Association

The Portuguese Medical Writers Association (Associa??o Portuguesa de Medical Writers [APMW]) is hosting a boot camp led by Avi Staiman. As a precursor to the main event, APMW invites you to join a special introductory session on Thursday, June 6, from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM WEST. This session is free of charge and open to all. Click here to sign up.

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Other News

The Peer Review Week (PRW) steering committee has officially announced the theme for PRW 2024: “Innovation and Technology in Peer Review.” During the week of September 23-27, 2024, participating organizations will host events and activities to highlight the changing publishing landscape and the ongoing vital role of peer review in shaping scholarly communication.

The theme was chosen via?an open global poll of the scholarly community, in which 494 people voted. We have shared more details about this year’s PRW in the official theme announcement press release at?https://peerreviewweek.wordpress.com/.