Curating and summarising new research for busy readers
Clinicians are expected to stay current with a literature that is becoming nearly impossible to keep up with, and medical writers are increasingly asked to select what matters from it and summarise it, for clinicians or for patients: this topic answers why that demand exists, who commissions curated content, what the deliverables look like, which questions tailor a summary to its reader, and why writers are suited to the work. Turning a single publication into a social media post is in social media posts about research, reporting a meeting in full in meeting and symposium reports, and appraising the studies being summarised in critical appraisal.
Know why the demand exists
The account here is Laura C. Collada Ali's, Jackie L. Johnson's and Amy Whereat's, in an article in EMWA's journal Medical Writing. Collada Ali is a medical writing and translation consultant, Johnson an expert scientific writer who runs a medical communications agency in Amsterdam and leads an EMWA workshop on congress coverage, and Whereat a medical communications consultant; all three had received consultancy fees from one of the private curators they describe, which they declare as not relevant to the article. The September 2019 issue of Medical Writing drawn on here was admitted from an existing Markdown conversion without content repair; its known limitations are broken ligatures, mangled multi-column tables, interleaved page headers and footers, and figure text represented as marked text.
Global scientific output doubles every nine years, and it is becoming nearly impossible to keep up. Clinicians are still expected to stay current with the latest research, and time-pressed clinicians need information that is easily accessible, brief and accurate enough to support informed clinical decisions. Their needs differ from those of students, researchers or the public: a clinician usually looks for brief, accurate information for one of two reasons, to stay current with developments relevant to their practice or to answer a question about a particular patient, and with a full schedule often has no time for new literature. Patients, students and researchers may want the latest developments too, and for patients the writer has to simplify the language and sentence structure while keeping the key results in context.
Know who curates, and for whom
Curating content means gathering the information relevant to a particular topic; a content curator collects, collates and summarises the most relevant material published in the literature or presented at congresses and shares it on specialised websites, in newsletters and elsewhere. Content is called independent when it is not industry supported, and independent clients are usually not-for-profit associations, organisations or societies run by and for their members — patient associations and scientific societies are the typical examples. Sponsored content is provided with support from industry clients who have an interest in providing information in therapeutic areas of interest to their end users, such as clinicians or the general public. Governmental bodies curate too, particularly regulatory drug updates informing clinicians about new products and treatment guidelines. And pharmaceutical companies may hire agencies or freelance writers to cover congresses live, which gives them the most up-to-date information but rarely reaches the public domain, and such coverage and reporting is regulated differently in each country.
Their table of examples shows the range as it stood in 2019. Among independent curators, the European Society for Medical Oncology, which the table prints as the European Society of Medical Oncology, with over 20,000 members from over 150 countries, published some four to seven unique articles a week in English with regular newsletters; the American Society of Clinical Oncology's daily news gave print and online summaries from oncology conferences to its members and oncology providers; and local scientific societies, for which the table gives seom.org as an example, published weekly summaries of the literature and news in their own languages. Among private curators, one global online destination for physicians combined news and expert perspectives with point-of-care drug and disease information, continuing education and country-specific sites; a free medical news and education platform published around 250 unique articles a week across all topics, written in English and translated, or written in local languages, across thirteen languages; and others offered daily email digests, US clinical and policy coverage with meeting coverage and education credits, or an online professional community with conference diaries and daily digests in five languages. Among government agencies, the Italian and Spanish regulatory agencies published monthly online summaries of validated drug updates and practice guidelines, and the UK's National Health Service ran an award-winning public website giving independent health news from the recent literature; the table repeats that description for a state government health site in Australia, which reads as a conversion or layout error rather than a second description. A French multidisciplinary publication listed under INSERM, which the table says started more than 30 years ago, rounds the list off.
Shape the deliverable to the reader's time
The deliverables vary. Typically the most important information has to be identified and summarised in one or two key points, which the authors call quite a challenge, and the writer may also need to say why it matters, describe the key study design elements, highlight the key results and their significance, and note the study's limitations. Some providers ask for no more than 200–300 words so that a time-pressed reader can digest it; others ask for a journalistic style, with the key information up front and the details after. Congress findings may be wanted as a scientific press release, a slide deck, a combination of the two or something else entirely, and companies and writers are increasingly creative about presenting findings in ways that make reading easier. Journals' own blog posts, easier to read than full articles, are another format a writer may be asked to produce from a publication.
Ask the questions that tailor a summary to its reader
The authors give the writer questions to ask in tailoring a text to each audience. For clinicians: does the publication, abstract, poster or talk target clinicians' needs, and did the researchers study outcomes clinicians care about; where was the study done, at which centres, and were the populations country- or ethnicity-specific; how did the researchers interpret the results, and does the study answer its question; is the study population like the patients the clinician treats, and is the intervention feasible for them; will the finding have an impact on patient care or add to treatment algorithms; does it challenge current guidance or present off-label use, or describe novel endpoints that challenge practice; were the methods appropriate; does the journal, congress or website present the information accurately; and who funded the study — a pharmaceutical company or an independent group? For patients the list is shorter: did the researchers study outcomes patients would care about; where was the study done and with which populations; does it show better quality of life; does it suggest patients can have more control over their disease; how did the researchers interpret the results; and who funded it.
See why writers are suited to the work
Curators can ensure that the articles selected for publication are relevant and of high quality for the reader. Professional medical writers are increasingly in demand for content curation because they are trained to judge research quality and relevance; those with scientific training and experience writing publications can make sure the information is critically analysed before it reaches the reader, and most experienced writers add summarising skill, specialist medical knowledge, an understanding of good publishing practice and ethics, and — having often been scientists or clinicians themselves — a personal understanding of the audience. The authors borrow Steve Jobs's line that simple can be harder than complex, because you have to work hard to get your thinking clean enough to make it simple. Their description of the role is guardianship of the information entering the public domain: ensuring accuracy and highlighting the most relevant studies for every stakeholder, from pharmaceutical clients to patients. And they see the work growing — dozens of articles curated every week in English, and also translated or written directly in local languages, which opens opportunities for medical translators as well as writers.