What is Medical Writing
Medical writing involves writing well- structured scientific documents such as- relevant health magazines, clinical research documents, informational articles, content for healthcare websites, journals and news. The topics of medical writing could be disease or drug related research articles or content for publication such as journal manuscripts, apart from that Medical writing also involves written content for healthcare websites, magazines and news articles.
In a typical healthcare setting, wherever a detailed review or documentation is required – Medical Writing is essential. These days a lot of hospitals and companies are hiring Medical Writing professionals for detailed audits and reviews.
Types of Medical Writing
Medical writing can be of two types:
- Regulatory medical writing
- Educational medical writing
Regulatory writing
It is all about writing detailed and structured documents for regulatory agencies in order to seek approval for devices, drugs and biologics such as – hormones, blood products, growth factors, vaccines,etc. This report might include clinical trial data, post approval documents, regulatory submission documents, etc.
Examples of Regulatory Writing:
- Prescription information & Patient Information handouts
- Reports on clinical studies
- Synopses of data on web
- Subject specific writing
- Regulatory submission documents – Expert reports, Common Technical Document (CTD) modules – clinical and non-clinical summaries, Aggregate safety reports – Periodic Safety Update Reports ( PSURs), Safety & efficacy synopses, bridging reports, Periodic Adverse Drug Experience Reports (PADER), Annual safety reports (ASR)s; policy documents, etc.
- Proposals and applications for new FDA drug and medical device
Educational Medical Writing
It involves a detailed informational article, review or paragraphs about devices, medicines and biologics. This information is coherent in nature and is written very clearly and concisely. Educational medical writing is sometimes done for specialized audiences such as healthcare professionals, which includes content such as:
- Informative content on newly launched drugs
- Medical journals
- Continuing Education
- Continuing Medical Education
- Technical guidelines
Educational medical writing can be further divided into different categories:
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The need for a good healthcare content writer grew since structured content was needed for various platforms. This content is precise and helps the user understand the concept in simple terms and words. Medical writing does not involve inventing or generating the actual concept but combining the work of scientists and physicians to present the information at the right level for the target audience. Since the knowledge is vast and consists of the research work, medical writers put this information in a readable context mentioning the references and combining information from various sources to put out a storyline of the information with facts.
Medical Writing Eligibility
In order to become a Medical content writer – specialized knowledge and skills are supposed to be present in the writer who is able to write scientific documents that are well- structured and presented in a clear and concise manner.
Eligibility for becoming a medical writer sometimes differs from one organization to another, as the type of Medical writing, type of organization, knowledge and experience are the driving factors for the job role.
Common Eligibility of the job is:
- Bachelor or Masters degree in life sciences or related field
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in the English language is not mandatory but recommended,
- Basic knowledge and understanding of medical terminologies Experience in medical field is preferred
- Certifications from Indian Medical Writers Association (IMWA) for the position of Regulatory Medical Writers
- PhD’s or MD’s are specific for core organizations
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Medical Writing Salary
The salary for Medical writing ranges between 1.5 LPA to 6.5 LPA in India, but often the writers are hired on per writeup basis and the pay scale then changes to hourly or per writeup basis.
Medical writing as a profession also varies from organization to organization and the salary ranges according to the kind of content being written.
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Medical Writing Roles and Responsibility
- Creating, proofreading and editing regulatory and clinical documents, Investigator brochures.
- Directly involved in medical marketing of new FDA drugs, pharmaceutical products, equipment through writeups, blogs, information handouts/leaflets, etc.
- Coordination with physicians, scientists and healthcare professionals for whereabouts of ongoing research and transcribing study results into readable data.
- Collaborating with physicians, surgeons, scientists and subject matter experts for documentation.