In recent years, the medical writing landscape has evolved to include a crucial new voice: the patient. As patient-centered care and shared decision-making gain momentum, patients are increasingly contributing to medical literature, advocacy materials, and even peer-reviewed research.
Medical communicators and publications share a serious responsibility for advancing scientific knowledge and following ethical practices and guidelines.
A number of organizations have released position statements, guidelines, and best practices that can be useful when navigating ethical concerns in scientific publishing.
When medical communicators understand and internalize these standards of integrity and transparency, they can help balance the expectations of stakeholders and publish material that meets the highest ethical standards.
Where do medical communicators find ethical guidance?
All medical communicators need to adhere to a strong set of ethics and standards. In particular, regulatory medical writers who collaborate on company‑sponsored biomedical research projects are part of a chain of responsibility for accurately reporting the results of clinical trials.
Every document improves with editing, and medical editors are key to the process of creating consistent, readable, and error-free manuscripts.
What are the fundamentals of manuscript editing for medical communicators? What are editors looking for when they edit manuscripts? What tools are available when editors seek to create high-quality manuscripts?
Open access (OA) publishing is a model of publishing that mainly shifts the costs of publishing an article from the reader to the authors and distributes scholarly works online without paywalls or other barriers.
The concept of open access is part of a larger movement called Open Science that seeks to make scientific documents, data, and research more accessible and equitable.
AMWA acknowledges the contributions of Crystal Herron PHD, ELS, as lead content developer, and Michelle Sauer Gehring PHD, ELS, for peer review, in the development of this AMWA resource.
As the world moves in a more interconnected, digital, and collaborative direction, best practices in authorship have become less straightforward.
Medical writers may find themselves contributing to manuscripts in many ways and might encounter problematic examples of ghost authorship, gift authorship, and guest authorship.
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are the foundation for advancing clinical practice. However, not all RCTs are created equal. To communicate how an RCT was designed and what it found, authors must report clear and accurate information about its methodology and results. Unfortunately, many reviews have shown that authors often don’t provide complete and transparent information about the clinical trial, which can lead to misinterpretation of the validity and reliability of the results.
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?
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.
This article is based on content presented by Monica Nicosia, PhD, Nicosia Medical Writer LLC, Bryn Mawr, PA, at the AMWA Medical Writing & Communication Conference.
Writing for scientific publications is at the heart of the medical writer’s mission.
What are these publications looking for? And how can medical communicators streamline and improve the process to deliver excellent copy and increase the likelihood of publication?
How do medical communicators distill the results of complex studies into just a few hundred words?
Many times, they do it by writing conference or meeting abstracts.
If you’re a new medical writer, you probably find yourself looking for templates and document guidelines to help you organize your work. Whether you’re a new graduate or an experienced scientist pivoting into a new career, you’ll need to spend time learning the purpose of each type of medical document in your niche and structuring it properly. Below, we offer an explanation of and guidance for writing clinical case reports.
Whether you're hoping to expand your portfolio to include medical journal writing or are already incorporating journal articles into your medical writing career, it's helpful to refresh your awareness of best practices.
True or false:
Well-trained medical communicators bring value to the teams with whom they work.
I hope you answered true because that’s the right answer.
The key adjective of course is well-trained.