Using PEMAT to Create Effective Patient Education Materials

If patients and consumers don’t understand patient education materials — or don't know what action to take after reading or viewing them — those materials aren’t doing their job.

The result could be confusion, disengagement, or poor health outcomes. 

But how do we know whether health education materials are effective? One important health literacy tool that is used to assess patient education materials is the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT).

ICMJE Authorship Guidelines and Acknowledging Non-author Contributions

Scientific manuscripts are rarely the work of one author. They are the result of complex collaborative relationships. This reality begs the questions: Who is the author of a scientific manuscript? When is someone credited as an author, and when are they considered a non-author contributor?

Engaging Health Care Professionals with Scientific Storytelling

Storytelling is the basis for human connection, with oral and written traditions stretching back for millennia. 

Our brains have evolved to respond to stories.

It is not only patients and consumers who respond to excellent stories. Scientists and health care professionals are also humans with emotional and intellectual attachments to engaging narratives.

Bringing Structure to Scientific Manuscripts: What Is IMRAD?

One of the most useful acronyms in a medical communicator’s toolkit is IMRAD. 

It stands for the sections of a scientific research paper: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.

Editing and Organizing References in EndNote

By Stephen N. Palmer, PhD, ELS, Texas Heart Institute

Use these EndNote tips and tricks to save time and solve problems when citing book chapters, making global text edits, maintaining journal title words and abbreviations, collaborating with other users, and correcting erroneous page numbers and corrupted in-text citations. This Mini Tutorial describes tips for EndNote X7. Exact steps may differ for later versions.

Proofreading Tips for Busy Medical Communicators

In medical communication, it is critical to ensure that documents and other materials are free from mistakes, inconsistencies, and errors. The stakes are high, and even though few of us reach perfection, it is important to utilize all the tools at our disposal to get as close as we can.