Technical Writing for the Medical Professional

Outcomes You will learn the basic skills needed by medical writers. Because the many fields of medicine are rapidly evolving, you will develop skills to maintain current knowledge in your area, and to write effective materials to share your knowledge with colleagues and other health care professionals as well as to develop educational materials for consumers and patients. Assessment Each week, you will be given essay questions to develop and hone your writing skills. Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Medical terminology First of all, a medical writer must know medical terminology. You must be able to speak the language. The technical terminology is composed of root words of Latin or Greek origin, and prefixes and suffixes that describe conditions or processes. At the end of this course a brief list of basic resource books will be recommended. As you find your niche in the medical writing field, you may need other reference books. Basic Anatomy and Physiology Basic anatomy and physiology is necessary so that you can locate the spot in the body where events are happening. If you are considering a career in the pharmaceutical industry, find out the specifics of drug research and development as well as the approval process required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Work within biotechnology areas requires a basic knowledge of genetics and relevant terms. Statistics Know your statistics, or at least be familiar with the standard evaluations and their uses: mean and standard deviation, p value, Student''s t test. This segment will ask you to define each of these methods and explain when it would be used. Computer Skills Computer skills are essential. Your computer is your tool. Know how to use it. Be familiar with essential programs like Word, WordPerfect, PowerPoint, Excel, and Visio for most documents you will work on as well as QuarkExpress, PageMaker, or FrameMaker for larger documents. Hone Your Writing Skills Join a writers'' group to get you habituated to writing on a regular basis, and so you can hone writing and editing skills. Find a local group to join. For more specific collegiality, consider joining the American Medical Writers Association. The national organization''s website is www.amwa.org. Local chapters are listed there so you can find a chapter near you. Get acquainted with people who are active in the field. Building Your Resources 1. Basic Reference Books Build your library of resource books to help you with your writing. Basic reference books include a basic grammar book, the AMA Manual of Style, Council of Biology Editors Style Manual, Chicago Manual of Style, Dorland''s Medical Dictionary, or Stedman''s Medical Dictionary, and a good basic dictionary like Webster''s Collegiate. It is also helpful to have a copy of the Merck Manual (physician-level encyclopedia of illnesses) and the Physicians'' Desk Reference (PDR), which lists and describes all pharmaceutical agents available. 2. E-mail and Web Browsing E-mail and a web browser are essential to every medical writer. Get comfortable with it. You need to have access to medical research papers like those available on Medline, PubMed, and Grateful Med. Much of medical writing business is carried out by e-mail. However, costs for a basic e-mail service are going up. Several techniques and strategies can be used to minimize your expenses. Skills for on-line searches will be covered. Contact Hours: 24