Essentials of Medical Writing
Essentials of Medical Writing
Essentials of Medical Writing
Jou
H
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ISSN: 2157-7420
Informatics
Letter
Open Access
Abstract
Medical writing involves communicating composite data and ideas in a clear, brief, plausible, absolute, and
convincing manner. Its all about developing materials about medicine and health by collecting, organizing, interpreting,
and presenting information in a manner appropriate for the target audience.
Life sciences graduates can deem medical writing as a valuable career choice as the demand for medical writing
professionals is growing progressively in pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. In these days, there is a rapid
addition of new information and knowledge related to the field of sciences and medicines in the form of research articles,
clinical papers or studies or data.
Ayurveda, the oldest medical writing of Hindus, is a part of the least ancient Veda-Atharva Veda. Also, there are
several other examples of ancient medical writing concepts, which include Hippocratic writings, Aristotle, Diocles,
among others. They wrote about the definitions of the different diseases, their clinical symptoms, diagnosis and
differential analysis. Firstly, these topics were described and then followed by a debate of the hypotheses on aetiology
and pathogenesis.
Medical writing can be of several types like research writing, product related promotional writing, educational materials
for patients or researchers or physicians, manuscripts, abstracts, health related news articles, regulatory, websites of
healthcare or pharmaceutical companies and many others. These medical or scientific information documents should
be written according to the type of target audiences like patients, doctors or physicians, general public or the regulatory
officials.
What makes medical writing a challenging job is the need of a clear thinking about the content and the respective
audience. The other problem includes the involvement of both science and art, and business and academic-related
ethical issues like plagiarism and copy rights. Overall, requirements of being a good medical writer include having a
clear understanding of scientific guidelines about the structure and format of content, medical terminologies, and good
writing skills. Knowledge about the medical or scientific literature survey tools, presentation of research data, publishing,
reviewing, and editing requirement is beneficial for medical writers.
Knowledge of other design-blended innovative learning solutions such as digital, print, learning modules and clinical
case studies could be valuable for a medical writer.
Chemistry
Medicine
Pharmacy
Nutrition and dietetics
zz An excellent command over English language and grammar
methods of research data, publishing, reviewing, and editing
requirements
Citation: Koushik AK (2015) Essentials of Medical Writing. J Health Med Informat 6: 186. doi:10.4172/2157-7420.1000186
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