Blogs

Information Overload? Our 2019 AMWA Award Winners Can Help

By Cynthia Kryder posted 30 days ago
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Did you know that today we receive 5 times as much information as we did in 1986? This amount is the equivalent of 174 newspapers of data a day . It’s not surprising that many of us feel as though we have information overload, especially when some of what we read and hear is false. Combating the glut of misleading information out there on the web can be a challenge. If you find yourself becoming stressed and disturbed by the rise in scientific inaccuracies you encounter, the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) 2019 John P. McGovern and Walter C. Alvarez Award winners may offer some relief. AMWA presents these awards annually to leaders who have made ...
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Getting from one place to another…or, knowing where you began so you can know where you are headed

By AMWA Journal posted 01-15-2019
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Dominic De Bellis, PhD Science Series Section Editor It’s 2019 and it’s unbelievable (to me, anyway) how time passes. Looking back, AMWA has always been a wealth of information for all. In addition to the members, the Journal is filled with learnings for all aspects of the medical and scientific writing/editing profession. As 2019 begins, the Journal remains more relevant than ever, guiding readers to the future of communicating science and medicine. Looking back and thinking ahead implies continuity between past, present, and future. As such, the 2-Part Feature series about the “Transport of Substances in the Body” by Laurie Thomas, MA, ELS, reinforces ...
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A Loss for the Medical Communication Community

By Lori Alexander posted 12-12-2018
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Just a year ago, AMWA Annual Conference attendees had the privilege of listening to Lisa Schwartz, MD, MS, and Steven Woloshin, MD, MS, deliver the 2017 McGovern Award lecture. Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Woloshin have been influential voices in efforts to improve the communication of medical evidence, especially to lay audiences. And now, one of those voices is gone. Dr. Schwartz passed away on November 29, leaving those of us in the medical and medical communication communities shocked and saddened. Many In Memoriam articles recount her exceptional contributions to research (with Dr. Woloshin) on the science of effective risk communication; communicating information ...
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AMWA Convenes Medical Writing Executives Forum, “Preparing for the Future of Medical Writing in Pharma and Biotech”

By Susan Krug posted 12-11-2018
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At its annual Medical Writing & Communication Conference in November 2018, the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) convened executives of medical writing departments at top biotech and pharmaceutical companies to discuss workforce trends and advancements in medical writing. Joan Affleck, MBA, ELS, Executive Director and Head of Medical Writing at Merck & Co, chaired AMWA’s inaugural Medical Writing Executives Forum, an annual invitational event for executives to optimize the functioning of their medical writing departments while preparing their medical writing teams for future success. These leaders shared information on how they have embraced ...
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10 Years After...Still Good as Gold

By AMWA Journal posted 11-27-2018
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Thomas M. Schindler, PhD Statistics Section Editor (with many other interests) Ten years are no time at all. Well not exactly no time, but not much (although it’s about 1/8 of your lifetime [if you live in the United States]). Still, one would hope that things that were good 10 years ago are still good today. To find out, I checked an issue of the AMWA Journal from 10 years ago—the autumn issue of 2008 ( V23, N3 )—and looked for articles that have stood the test of time. I was not the least bit surprised to find at least 3 articles that remain very worthwhile 10 years after they were published. Consider an article by Mary E. Knatterud titled “ With ...
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Grow Your Business by Learning to Write CME Needs Assessments

By Donald Harting posted 10-04-2018
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Continuing medical education (CME) writers may be a minority membership category within AMWA, but hey, our gig is still pretty sweet. Where else can you earn money while learning about state-of-the-art drugs for scary diseases, telling stories about cool medical breakthroughs, and interacting with brainy thought leaders across multiple specialties? If you’re a freelance writer who has been thinking about entering the CME market, now could be a good time. As you can see from the chart above, commercial support is growing briskly. And, since every accredited CME program must begin with a needs assessment, learning how to write these basic documents would be ...
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The Most Debatable Content Per Column Inch

By AMWA Journal posted 09-25-2018
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Tamara Ball, MD Everyday Ethics Section Editor After a long period of dormancy, a new ethics column, “Everyday Ethics”, premiered in Fall of 2017 ( AMWA Journal . 2017;32(3):120-123 ). “ Another Ethics Column?” described ethics as critical to the survival of our profession and introduced 2 foundational tools, the AMWA Code of Ethics and the RIGHT Model. Beyond the premier, I chose to focus less on how we work, and more on the bioethical issues inherent in the groundbreaking subjects upon ­ which we work. As skills to alter biologic processes are refined, methods for delivering health care are updated, and manipulations of the life’s building blocks ...
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Let’s Talk Grants at #AMWA2018

By Meagan Ramsey posted 08-29-2018
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Grant reviewers can be finicky. They expect well-written proposals that are easy to read, and they are annoyed when proposals do not meet these expectations—they are only human after all. Unfortunately, investigators who are submitting grant proposals don’t always consider things from the perspectives of their reviewers. And this can quickly result in yet another unfunded proposal, even after spending countless hours writing the proposal and planning a methodologically-rigorous project. This scenario is common; funding rates are low for agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—a primary funding agency for biomedical research. Many investigators ...
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Simple Secrets That Good Writers Know

By AMWA Journal posted 08-21-2018
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Laurie Endicott Thomas, MA, ELS Author of Not Trivial: How Studying the Traditional Liberal Arts Can Set You Free www.nottrivialbook.com My AMWA Journal column In the Service of Good Writing teaches you how to use some basic principles from grammar and linguistics to improve your writing. The first step in improving your writing is to learn how to choose the right words. To do that, you need to learn how to make full use out of your dictionary. In my article Definitions: How to Say What You Mean (Vol 30, No. 2), I explain the different kinds of definitions, such as dictionary definitions, stipulative definitions, and Socratic definitions. ...
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Instructional Design and Microlearning

By Deborah Anderson posted 08-14-2018
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As medical writers, we are responsible for aspects such as research, grammar, form, flow, context, and many other things. However, during our education, be it at school or on-the-job, we are seldom taught about the world of instructional design, even though it is something that is inherent to our writing. Instructional design takes medical writing one step further and focuses on the importance of the learner, the goals of a program, and the steps required to meet that goal. As writers, we must ensure that our pieces meet the goal of what we are trying to achieve. It is not enough to simply accept a job without asking the proper questions. We must consider the ...
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Learn Which Tools Will Help You Thrive in This Digital World

By Monica Nicosia posted 07-31-2018
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By Monica Nicosia, PhD, and Kathy Boltz, PhD Would you like to find tools to help you work more efficiently? Are you leery of technology? Do you worry about cyber security? Do you see yourself in any of these statistics 1 about freelance medical communicators? For time tracking, 32% use spreadsheets and 40% don’t use any software/app For accounting/bookkeeping, 42% use spreadsheets and 20% don’t use any software/app If you answered yes to any of these questions, come to our Tools to Thrive in a Digital World session at the 2018 AMWA Medical Writing & Communication Conference . During this session, we are going to unpack the ...
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27 Tips for Efficiently Writing Scientific Publications and Other Documents

By Katherine Molnar-Kimber posted 07-17-2018
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I always obtain some new ideas and tips for boosting productivity at the AMWA annual conference and other AMWA meetings. This year I’m illustrating the most effective 27 tips and strategies for efficiently writing a scientific or clinical manuscript on Saturday, Nov. 3 from 9 am to 10 am at the AMWA annual conference in Washington, DC. Many of the tips are applicable to writing other types of documents. Here’s a brief teaser: Efficiently writing any document, especially a scientific or clinical manuscript, reduces your stress and helps you provide the “on time, on target, and on budget” deliverable to your boss or clients. To make the most of your time, the ...
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Couldn’t Attend All the Conference Sessions on Your List? AMWA Journal Has You Covered

By AMWA Journal posted 06-27-2018
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Kristina Wasson-Blader, PhD, ELS Editor-at-Large Can you believe it’s been 7 months since the Medical Writing & Communication Conference in Orlando, Florida? It was about this time last year that I sat down and read the Conference Brochure to start my plan of what I wanted to attend. As I was cleaning my office recently, I came across that list (we can talk about my paper hoarding later). Looking over this list, I realized that there were a lot of open sessions I wanted to attend but ended up at different sessions during those times. Fortunately, the AMWA Journal had volunteer reporters who attended most of the open sessions and provided summaries of ...
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Finding Your Happy

By Brandi Talkington posted 06-04-2018
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PhD, postdoc, professor. Secure funding, publish results, repeat. If you would have asked me 13 years ago what my career path as a blossoming research scientist was going to look like, it probably would have been something along those lines. I definitely would not have told you that I was going to be a medical writer. As many experience, PhD students are often presented with one career path: research. Maybe a foray into government or industry, but always at the bench; that’s what PhDs are supposed to do. Somewhere in my third year I realized that, although I loved learning and talking about science, I didn’t necessarily love doing science. I loved teaching ...
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Freelance Forum Highlights

By AMWA Journal posted 05-22-2018
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Ruwaida Vakil, MSc Freelance Forum Section Editor Freelance medical writers often work from home and miss out on the daily interactions that benefit many onsite medical writers. Networking both in person and online, intelligently sourcing online information, and attending conferences can help overcome these barriers. The Freelance Forum of the AMWA Journal is a section dedicated to the issues frequently faced by freelances. In each issue, your fellow AMWA freelances provide their expertise on the most common questions that freelances face. In the Spring 2018 issue ( Vol 33, No 1 ) of the Freelance Forum several experienced freelances participated in a ...
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Twelfth Year, or, What You Read: A Local Chapter’s Ongoing Book Club

By Mary Knatterud posted 05-01-2018
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Mary E. Knatterud, PhD is the founder and coordinator of the North Central Chapter Book Club With apologies to Shakespeare for the title of this blog (a genre he no doubt would’ve found both playful and useful), this 12th year of my chapter’s Book Club can be summed up in the following equation: 3 books on medicine/communication per year + a mean of 4 to 5 non-mean AMWA colleagues = immeasurable professional, intellectual, and social growth A dozen years ago, after conversations with half-a-dozen fellow longtime North Central Chapter members also seeking to animate and regularize our programming, I organized a Book Club, which first met in January 2007. ...
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You Can Call Me “Al…”

By AMWA Journal posted 04-24-2018
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Dominic De Bellis, PhD Section Editor, AMWA Journal Science Series As a music lover and musician I remember ( key word here! ) when Paul Simon’s Graceland album was released on CD (1986, Warner Bros. Records, Inc.). And, yes the play on words with the song title above should become evident as you continue reading. The song title describes “a kind of South African funk/dance groove,” explained Paul Simon in the liner notes to this CD; and it’s a catchy groove too! But, more poignantly for me, it reminds me that remembering this song title, or any other past fact no matter how new or old, is something more precious than we realize. Let’s take a look at ...
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Refer A Colleague and Share the Value of AMWA

By American Medical Writers Association posted 04-16-2018
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Here at AMWA, we know our members are our most valuable benefit. Each and every one of you is professional, ethical, and incredibly generous with your time and expertise. Thanks to you, AMWA is known for being a warm and welcoming community that shares a common purpose to promote excellence in medical communication. With your support, AMWA can expand this amazing community and add more value to your membership experience. Invite a medical writing colleague to join AMWA today! For every member who joins AMWA thanks to your referral, you will be entered into a raffle to win a free registration for the Medical Writing & Communication Conference . As ...
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Continuing the Fight for Pay Equity

By Brian Bass posted 04-10-2018
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It’s 2018, and women in America still have to work until Tuesday to earn what men earned by Friday of the previous week. If you’re a woman you should be outraged. And if you’re a man, you should also be outraged. Today, April 10, is Equal Pay Day. I support Equal Pay Day, and the efforts of the National Committee on Pay Equity . Note that I don’t “celebrate” Equal Pay Day. That’s because, unfortunately, there’s not much to celebrate. When the Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963, women earned 59 cents on average for every dollar earned by men. According to a 2003 report, the US General Accounting Office noted a 20% gap in earnings between women and men that couldn’t ...
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What’s your next move? Advancing your medical writing career

By AMWA Journal posted 03-27-2018
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Kimberly Korwek, PhD Around the Career Block section editor AMWA is well known as a valuable resource for new medical writers, but it offers a wealth of career-building tools for every stage. I have selected 3 articles that have some great insight for your career, whether you are just starting out, looking for your next move, or just want to keep yourself competitive. Whether you are booking your first client or your fiftieth, a little inside perspective from a hiring manager never hurts. In her article, Getting Noticed, Hired, and Rehired: Tips from an In-House Freelance Hiring Manager , Linda Rinehart shares her advice for landing a job—and keeping ...
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