#4: What will I be writing? (Part I)

In the last article I said I will touch on the job scope of a medical writer apart from writing. I reckon I should first give you an idea the types of publications or materials you will be producing.

First of all, you need to know that a medical or healthcare communications company provides a variety of editorial and non-editorial services for its clientele. The clients are normally companies that sell pharmaceutical products (i.e. medicine or what we usually call drugs), medical devices, health supplements and milk formula, hospitals, or medical associations, to name a few.

The materials produced are tailored to their needs and requirements, and to be used as a supporting tool for their marketing campaign of a new medicine, or simply to remind people of an existing drug.

As mentioned in one of my earlier posts, the materials produced can target either medical or healthcare professionals (e.g. specialists, doctors, nurses, pharmacists), patients, patients’ family or common people like you and me.

These materials aim to educate the general public or patients on a particular disease (e.g. learn more about a disease, how to deal with it etc.), and to update the medical professionals on the latest drug development and patient care. Of course, the ultimate goal is to help increase sales of the client’s product.

So, as a medical writer in a communications company, you will be writing for both print publications and non-print materials.

Below is not an exhaustive list, but some of the more commonly produced print publications:

• Event highlights – a summary of talk(s) held during a dinner symposium solely sponsored by one drug company or a large-scale international conference.
• Newsletter – can be monthly, quarterly or biannually, featuring articles related to a disease or a group of diseases.
• Clinical summary – a summary of one or more published clinical papers.
• Detail aid – also known as a sales aid or visual aid, it contains information of a specific product (e.g. efficacy, safety, supporting clinical data and graphs, administration and dosing guide), coupled with creative elements.
• Disease chart – used to explain different aspects of a disease, normally in the form of a desktop flip chart or a wall poster to be placed in the doctor’s office
• Brochure – usually for patients or a certain group of readers (e.g. pregnant women, parents, elderly etc.).
• Booklet – same as the above, but a booklet is able to carry more information.
• Materials in a meeting folder – a compilation of different documents, such as welcome letter, abstracts and slides, to be given out during a meeting or conference.

Apart from the above, you will also be writing or preparing content for non-print materials, which I will talk about in the next post. Remember to drop by next week!