Medical Writing – A Promising Non-Clinical Career

A: Non-clinical work support patient care indirectly. Regulatory bodies, public health, research and education, hospitals, healthcare providers, medical tourism, medical products, life sciences, diagnosis, wellness and care services, venture capitalists, distributors, pharma, payors (insurance company), healthcare IT, E-learning, etc provide non-clinical job opportunities.

Evolution in health policies, developments in health technology and health funding systems are providing different career paths and offering good pay scale. Professionals from clinical industry are also adding value with their practical experience and exposure in non-clinical industries. With the latest advancements and technologies, non-clinical sector is also into IT, AI, medical devices and innovations, start up, new ventures, etc.

A: E-Learning is when the learners and the instructor interact with each other in real time, from different locations.

Medical technology-based education like infographics, AI (artificial intelligence) is being used in e-learning for better understanding of the information for learners.

There is a lot of emphasis towards patient education. Many large organisations are focussing on educational content developed by medical writers which help patients understand about the treatments, prevention and management. Wellness and care services, diet coaching, mental wellness coaching is entirely content driven.

A: There are no geographical boundaries in the healthcare system. Freelancing is in demand, and the pandemic has increased work from home preference. Taking up training programs, practising writing, sharpening communication skills, strong competency and specialised knowledge to deliver professionally is important in freelancing.

A: Problem-based learning is a student-centred learning method in which students learn about a subject in groups to solve an open-ended problem. MedEduPro incorporates this teaching style which motivates the students in accomplishing their goals and learning objectives. It is application oriented and helps solving real time medical communication problems. Use of animations, videos in digital learning has made it easy to understand the concepts.

A: MedEduPro training program is customized and is focussed exclusively on writing for medical and healthcare. It is an application-oriented program. Whereas, MA in Media and Communication is completely based on media and teaches you about writing for different mediums, content strategies and techniques for gathering news.

A: Due to less demand for clinical dental practice in India, medical writing opens a very good opportunity to clinically apply their knowledge. It becomes simple for them to work in the medical writing field as they have sound knowledge of their subjects and are up to date with latest information in the medical field.

A: You can become a freelancer in medical writing by:

• Delivering good piece of writing
• Equipping yourself with good communication skills
• Gaining experience by working on assignments, reviews and feedback

Committing to your work

A: Yes, medical writing jobs are in demand for nutritionists as well. The newly discovered products look for evidences before prescribing to patients. Nutraceutical is widely accepted by the market in post pandemic era and medical writing is being used in:

• nutrition or medico-marketing particular to nutraceutical
• patient education in nutraceuticals and wellness
• scientific writing in particular to wellness
• social media marketing
• documentation of drugs

scientific publications, etc.

A: Every health communication in pharma is patient centric; it revolves around their education and wellness. Therefore, pharma and life sciences graduates have scope in medical writing. Upskilling yourself, applying subject knowledge and being professional is very important to build a career in medical writing.

A:  It is not mandatory to have a recognition but, before enrolling know the following about your training program.

• What are their practise values?
• For whom they write?
• Which organisations are they tied up with?

It is important to note that recruiters do not look for the stamp or from where you have trained but for the skills you have and the experience you have.

A: Alternate and traditional medicine like Ayurveda, homeopathy, yoga, acupuncture, herbal medicines are equally in demand as western medicine for managing illnesses. Alternate medicine is a huge domain that requires medical writers with a good edge over the subject, good language and writing skills, and knowledge of patient-centric sales and marketing techniques.