The importance of writing skill in medical writing

Medical writing is a combination of knowledge about scientific terminology and art of

writing skilfully. A medical writer has to prepare scientific or medical documents according
to needs of a business or stakeholders. These scientific documents can be disease or drug-
related, research-related, educational, promotional, news articles and many more. The
language and information in these documents should be understandable to target audience
which can be general public, patients, physicians or regulators. Due to diversity in target
audience, a medical writer should have understanding of medical concepts, terminology,
instructions and guidelines along with good writing skills. Medical writing is a challenging
job as one has to balance the need to ensure regulatory compliance, manage the different
views of multiple stakeholders belonging to different therapeutic areas and also prioritize
patient safety. Therefore, writing should be logical and succinct along with accurate data
interpretation and representation. Besides technical skills and subjective knowledge, a
significant prerequisite is passion for writing. Understanding of the subject along with
outstanding communication skills is most important for a good medical writer. A medical
writer should have zeal and zest for both science and writing. There are different types of
medical writing such as regulatory, publications or pharmacovigilance medical writing. Each
of these has different requirements for writing. Clinical background, logical thinking and
excellent communication skills are prerequisite for a regulatory medical writer. A publication
medical writer must have knowledge of relevant guidelines as outlined by journals, Good
Publication Practices (GPP). Publication writer should be aware of plagiarism, ghost-writing
and authorship while preparing a document. The third category is pharmacovigilance medical
writers. Thorough knowledge of Good Pharmacovigilance Practices, therapeutic area
expertise, understanding of regulatory requirements is prerequisite for pharmacovigilance
writers. In all categories, ability to impressively and effectively compiling the data, its
representation and interpretation which can convince the target audience is essential. These
all categories are meant to target distinct set of audience such as patients, general public,
physicians, drug regulators, stakeholders and medical professionals. Therefore, the language
used for drafting a document should be lucid to respective audience. Documents for medical
professionals should be technical including scientific data on detail whereas for general
public it should be simple, without technical jargon. An important aspect is to prepare a
document in a precise manner as “lean and mean” writing skills are required nowadays.
Finally, exceptional writing skills are the first and foremost requirement for a successful
medical writer in all categories. As quoted by Helle Gawrylewski, Principal at Hawkwood
Consulting, LLC, “Writing should support understanding. Being acutely aware of what the
audience needs to know is extremely important. Writing for understanding requires clarity,
brevity, and good organization. As they say, words matter, and they do!”