Medical writers and ghostwriting

This branch covers professional medical writing and ghostwriting, divided into definitions and boundaries, association guidance, credit and disclosure, evidence of practice, professional responses and ghostwriting outside scientific publishing. It leaves general authorship criteria, sponsor-funding disclosure, Good Publication Practice workflows and broader ethics codes to neighbouring topics.

• Professional medical writing and ghostwriting — ghost and guest authorship, professional writing support, disclosure, authors’ contributions, harms and research misconduct
• The writers’ associations’ guidelines and position statements — association guidance and the joint statement, expectations for writers and authors, translations and endorsements
• Acknowledging and disclosing a medical writer’s contribution — naming the writer, service and funder, disclosing non-author contributions, subcontracted writers and clients who refuse acknowledgement
• Evidence about medical writing practice — surveys and prevalence estimates, company policies, journal acknowledgements, and writing support in trial abstracts and retracted publications
• Answering the ghostwriting charge — rebutting misconceptions, professional advocacy, ethics education, public replies and a proposed publishing cooperative
• Ghostwriting outside scientific publishing — nonfiction and popular books, credit for their writers, and ghostwritten dissertations and theses