Medical writing: An Interesting Nonclinical opportunity for Medical Graduates and Postgraduates

Are you a medical graduate or postgraduate looking for nonclinical opportunities?

How many medical doctors/healthcare professionals take up medical writing as their first choice?

I have come across many of them who stumbled into this wonderful opportunity knowingly or unknowingly. I have friends who joined industry/academics/agencies who initially did not even know that they are doing medical writing. But gradually, as their roles became clearer, they adorned the title of “Medical Writer” or “Scientific Writer” or “Clinical Research Writer” or “Regulatory writer” or “Content writer”. There are many roles that you might have come across that involve medical writing to a great extent.

Before medical writing happened to me

Let me give you a brief background on what I did and how did I reach here. I am a qualified pediatrician (MBBS, DNB Pediatrics) and was practicing my specialty happily and had come back from Sydney (Children’s Hospital Westmead) in July 2001 after doing a small course in PICU (manage pediatric emergencies and the best practices being followed there). I was planning to join a hospital in my home town, Meerut as PICU specialist.

Introduction to medical writing and challenges in the initial journey

While I was still in Sydney, one of my acquaintances (friend’s friend) told me about clinical research and medical writing. I was quite intrigued initially about this opportunity and started reading about it and reaching out to a handful of medical writers in those times. The people with “Medical writer” designation were not many then Believe me, there were actually very few medical writers then, I tried to search about it and started to network with professionals to know more about it. Through my connections I came across a workshop on “Clinical Study reports” being held in Bangalore in 2003. I attended this workshop and made my first contact with a medical reviewer with one of the top medical communication company. He shared an assignment with me after I came back and post which I started regular freelance projects on medical writing. I worked with them for around 3 years. This was my first classroom of medical writing where I learned the maximum.

Though the learning was there, but it was interlaced with many mistakes and botched up projects initially, which could have been avoided with a proper industry-based training which would have made me more ready for the industry expectations. Some of the gaps that I faced in my initial part of career are:

1.      What questions to ask the client to understand the project well and their expectations?

2.      What are the standard templates for communications like effort hours trackers, minutes of meetings, client briefs, comment response document which are essential to be on the track and deliver the expectations? How and what to capture to ensure smooth communication between client, sponsor and myself?

3.      What are the must know tools for medical writing: for plagiarism (Ithenticate), referencing (Endnote), databases like Embase etc

4.      What additional skills should I horn in addition to my medical knowledge to become a good medical writer like good formatting (Word and PPT), biostatistics, data presentation and interpretation, basic designing ability while working on posters, images for publications and PPTs etc.

5.      What are the authentic platforms who give work to freelancers/contractual opportunities and to create an attractive and engaging profile?

6.      What is the role of the digital footprint and how to engage with the right kind of people to get regular assignments/projects?

Some of the resources that I referred during my learning journey are:

1.      Update my LinkedIn profile and communicate with industry experts to know more about the opportunities available and how to skill myself

2.      Become member of Medical writing associations like AMWA, EMWA, ISMPP etc and network with other members, participate in the discussion forums and read their resources for medical writers. EMWA also has a journal on “Medical Writing” which I had subscribed and was a great learning resource.

3.      Read books like “AMA manual of style”, “Chicago manual of style”, “The Clinician’s Guide to Medical Writing”, “The Complete Guide to Medical Writing” to name a few.

4.      Enroll in a couple of medical writing training programs (though there were very few at that time) to learn the ropes.

The journey started in 2002 and my curiosity and always ready to learn attitude has brought me to the current stage. Through this post I would like to reach out to the medical graduates and postgraduates in my connections who sometimes wonder whether they can find something which is professionally satisfying and also offers flexible work options to fit in their family responsibilities, career opportunities in small towns with remote working options.

Reach out to me at [email protected]/or DM me to initiate the conversation and how you can create a great career or compliment your current career. Becoming a medical writer allows you to work from any location, any time as long you are meeting your timelines and scale up as much as you want.

In my second part of the post I will be writing about my journey from a “Medical writer” to a “Trainer” and how I integrated my learnings in my trainings and my ideal training course in medical writing. Please comment, follow me, like or share to stay connected and exchange thoughts and experiences.

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