#2: Do I need to study medicine to be a medical writer?

The answer is: no. You need not study medicine to be a medical writer.

Since there is no medical writing or related professional degree offered in Malaysia yet, the primary prerequisite to be a medical writer is often a biological science related degree. While doctor-turn-medical writer is common in overseas, this won’t be so in Malaysia in the near future because here doctors (more!) are needed out there in the field to service the people.

So, who normally are the ones who get to work as a medical writer in a medical communications company? Well, many of them are pharmacist by profession. As for myself, I majored in biochemistry and did my post-grad research in the area of pharmacology. Others come from diverse backgrounds – biology, microbiology, veterinary, nursing, etc. Either this bunch of people turns out to have a passion or flair for writing, or believes that writing is more exciting and fulfilling as a career for them. Whatever the cause is, you can always switch to something else if, at the end of the day, you realize medical writing is not exactly your cup of tea.

The reason why you need a scientific background is obvious. You are writing to make your readers understand, whether they are doctors or laypeople. Before you can do that, you first need to understand the things you write. Almost all the things you write are going to revolve around diseases and drugs, basically biology and biochemistry stuffs. Having a scientific background will certainly help you a long way down the road in medical writing, as you will be able to comprehend the complicated ideas in medicine, and effectively turn it into sweet and easy information for the targeted audience to digest.

What about the aspect of writing? You have no experience in writing before, so can you be a medical writer? I’ll let you know next week!