I have been a medical writer for about 5 years now. I have primarily worked in med affairs and HCP advertising, but I need a change. I am interested in getting into CME or pubs maybe. Can anyone tell me how easy or difficult it is to make this sort of change? Any recommendations on how to make it happen? I am at a manager level in my current position, but if I were to transition to a new area of med writing, would I need to take a step down since I would be starting in an area I am unfamiliar with? submitted by /u/Specialist-Road-2734 [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

I've recently starting working as a Medical Editor (hope it's ok to still post on here!) I used to be a MW and would get lots of positive feedback on my editing so decided to move into working as an Editor. I started just over a month ago and I've found that my work is getting a lot of negative feedback. There are so many comments disagreeing with the edits I've made or picking up on things I've somehow missed. I follow the in-house style guide to the letter, but often things I change to align with the style guide I am told are wrong as they aren't the way things are done for that particular ..read more

So, I am planning to leave traditional medical writing. I am bored of churning out materials, footnotes, endpoints and veeva uploads, I also don’t like the commercial “advertising” side of promotional work eg selling in work to clients and finance/targets/KPI chat. I’d consider staying a med writer if I could stick to patient, unbranded or disease awareness work, are there agencies that specialise in these? (London based) I am now trying to think of some alternatives that still help transform lives in some way - healthcare consulting often comes up which I know would be very commercial but fo ..read more

I just wanted to tell people about a bad experience I had with a $2,000 writing course that I took a couple of years ago. To be fair, someone told me that they had had a good experience with the course a few years earlier. This individual told me that the course helped her get some experience. So I decided to check it out. When I looked at the advertising materials at the time (they may have changed since then), the instructor strongly implied that students who passed the course would likely have the opportunity to subcontract with her. In fact, I recall her saying that "almost everyone" woul ..read more

Does it not make sense to have diversity? Aren’t we excluding a large talent pool by doing this? submitted by /u/MedicalWritingX [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

Hello! Where to find freelancing jobs in medical writing (CMC or patient narratives) and/or Clinical Transparency & Disclosure? Honestly, LinkedIn sucks. Moreover, it is quite hard to find a job in the US/EU/UK if you do not have proper work visa. submitted by /u/Grouchy_Panda123 [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

Downvote me to oblivion if you want, but don't accuse me of lying. Have you noticed that very few medical writers actually write well? This includes many people who work for so-called medcomms agencies (and isn't the term "medcomms" an abomination?). I see many highly paid writers who don't seem to have a mastery of basic grammar. For instance, very few medical writers seem to know how to use hyphens correctly. Another thing I notice is that a lot of medical writers clearly don't speak English as their first language. A minority of them compensate for this by enunciating very carefully and re ..read more

I’m curious more than anything. I noticed my application got rejected from ‘Company A’. I applied again a few months later, after networking with someone from Company A’s team. My covering letter was the same. I made a few adjustments to my CV. This time I got an interview and I’m now completing a writing task. What gives? submitted by /u/MedicalWritingX [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

Hey guys, First time posting here I was wondering if anyone else finds making/creating/updating reference packs really tedious? I've just found that creating new reference packs for existing materials (provided by the client) takes a long time, especially when there are errors in source. I don't know if this is just me though? Do other people feel this way? And any tips for dealing with it? submitted by /u/Over-Guarantee8710 [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

In the UK, for context. I’m an MW with 5 years of experience in medcomms (all commercial work, some med ed/patient materials). I have a 2:1 BSc in a life science and was previously an HCP (had to leave due to health reasons, and sadly couldn’t return to that field). I moved from a very big agency in December as there was an internal merger, and I was being massively underpaid and undervalued. I’m now at a smaller agency and even though I’ve only been here a few months, I think I hate it. There are no proper QC processes in place and they often skip data checks/editorial review entirely, which ..read more