Getting into veterinary medical writing
Veterinary medical writing has had no defined career path and little training of its own, so writers reach it from veterinary practice, from other sciences and from medical writing for human medicines, each bringing skills that transfer and adding the specialist knowledge the documents ask for.
The field and its career path
In 2014 veterinary writing did not exist as a defined career path in the way medical writing does, and the terms veterinary writing and veterinary writer were not formally recognised. The field is less formalised than medical writing, but written communication matters as much in it. Writers play important roles in different areas of the veterinary profession, so numerous opportunities exist there for medical writers and for veterinarians. Veterinary writing covers a similarly wide array of activities, falling into two major categories: scientific writers concentrate on written communications for professional veterinary clinical and scientific audiences, while non-scientific writers typically produce non-technical materials.
The veterinary profession is a niche with a scope of writing needs similar to the medical field's, but in 2014 there were no structured educational pathways leading to recognition as an expert, and job openings for veterinary writers were not advertised as such. So persistence, networking and marketing are key to finding work, just as in medical writing.
Writing for the veterinary pharmaceutical industry is like being a minor species among medical writers: most colleagues work for the human pharmaceutical industry, and most seminars and workshops deal with topics specific to human medicinal products, such as the Clinical Trials Directive or the Common Technical Document format. Veterinary medical writing is a niche, and at a consultancy whose main business is human medicines it is also a fringe area, though writers for veterinary topics are still needed.
Interest in veterinary medical writing grew within EMWA from autumn 2018, and in December 2019 the field was growing rapidly. In March 2019 veterinary medicine was a relatively unploughed field for medical writers: veterinary pharmaceutical companies and research facilities were just learning that medical writing is a thing, more and more vets were learning of it, and more employment opportunities were expected to come with rising awareness, for newcomers and professionals alike.
Veterinarians and the pillars of veterinary work
The overwhelming majority of veterinarians are in private practice, so the words veterinarian and writer seldom appear in the same sentence. In 2011, 58 of AMWA's more than 5,400 members were licensed veterinarians.
There are three major pillars in which vets can work. Clinical work with pets is the most sought-after, since most vet students want it after their studies, and it fulfils the stereotype of vets as clinicians seen in All Creatures Great and Small; there is a large need for vets in the second pillar, work with food-producing livestock or in abattoirs, which in the big picture of general health matters much more than neurosurgery on paraplegic dachshunds, even if it is less glamorous; and the lesser-known third pillar, a scientific career, can run from bench work in a university or pharmaceutical company to supervising animal welfare in laboratories. The BBC series All Creatures Great and Small, whose main character worked as a vet in rural Yorkshire in the 1940s and 1950s, was very popular in Germany and created an idealistic image of the profession, though one vet recalls that the veterinary students of her age, whose hero was James Herriot, all knew that the life it showed had nothing to do with the work of a vet in 2013.
In the same vet's view, loving animals as the only motivation would make a vet's career frustrating, since most animals hate vets, and a vet also has to do unpleasant things, such as monitoring the slaughter of cattle or research on laboratory animals, that are hard to reconcile with a naive love of animals. All the vets she knows love animals, but they are also professionally committed to human wellbeing, in research or in food manufacturing.
Many vets are drawn to none of the three main pillars. One of them, after working as a neurosurgeon and completing a doctorate in neuroscience, came to see intrinsic motivation as key to enduring the poor working conditions of veterinary clinics, with long hours and sub-par salaries, and found it for no pillar: neither surgery nor research was a driving force, and three mandatory weeks in an abattoir during vet school had ruled out the public health pillar. What turned out to interest this vet was communication: translating complex medical information into digestible pieces for worried pet owners and eager students kept this vet going during 90-hour workweeks. In this vet's view, extensive knowledge of all fields of medicine makes medical information easy for vets to understand and relay. A chance meeting with a medical writer introduced this vet to medical writing as a fourth pillar, and a first EMWA conference followed, then employment as a medical communications writer at an agency and then medical communications freelancing.
Skills and qualifications
Many of a medical writer's skills are also needed in veterinary medical writing: interpreting and presenting scientific data, running literature searches, reviewing scientific information and keeping a keen eye on detail. Others are targeting writing to different audiences, the training in spelling and grammar that native and non-native English speakers alike have had, good communication, and the time management that comes from working under pressure.
Veterinary medical writing is a diverse field with some parallels to medical writing for human pharmaceuticals and other adjacent fields. The basic attributes it needs are similar to those of medical writing, but specialist knowledge has to be added, and what further qualification it calls for depends on the category of writing and the documents.
Veterinary writers do not need a veterinary degree. For scientific veterinary writing the degree is an advantage when applying for posts or freelance projects, though not necessarily essential, and it comes in very handy where the writer drafts the efficacy section of a submission dossier and is named as the clinical expert. Veterinarians with a graduate degree or a specialty qualification may also find some areas easier to enter.
A background such as biology or pharmacology that supplies knowledge of mammalian physiology is an advantage, as is academic experience. Because focused training is limited, a background in veterinary medicine, biology or agricultural science is valuable, especially for understanding the specific diseases, treatment routines, animal husbandry systems and terminology. As in medical writing, a writer with any science degree can succeed, and biologists, microbiologists, chemists, other natural scientists and scientific translators have all found niches in the field, depending on the documents. Veterinary nursing certification and animal-science courses or degrees also help. For the less technical non-scientific track a veterinary or science qualification is typically unnecessary though certainly advantageous, and writers on that track often hold a degree in communications, English or journalism. In the other direction, veterinarians with scientific writing capabilities often find themselves employed in human healthcare sectors such as the pharmaceutical or medical device industries.
An established medical writer on either track starts ahead, and many medical writers already work in this arena. Despite the many commonalities, writing for the veterinary profession can challenge even a medical writer experienced in a variety of medical writing categories and therapeutic areas: among other things, veterinary medicine has many specialised terminologies of its own and a unique framework for regulatory submissions, which pose very different challenges, though not insurmountable ones.
Veterinary students learn a broad variety of subjects, and one veterinarian who later moved into medical journalism chose veterinary medicine for that variety: she had to learn how to distinguish good grazing land from bad, receptor theory, which colour of egg yolk consumers prefer, how the complement system functions, how cheese is produced, and tumour cell pathology.
Training
Information and formal training specific to veterinary medical writing are scarce, especially compared with writing for human subjects, and courses of the kind EMWA offers for medical writing in general are practically non-existent for veterinary writing. An online search on 17 May 2019 for the term veterinary medical writing retrieved an EMWA journal article and an EMWA webinar on veterinary writing, and otherwise mainly consultancies offering veterinary medical writing services or medical writing education. Training on the regulatory background and framework is available, with basic training in European veterinary regulatory affairs offered by the Organisation for Professionals in Regulatory Affairs (TOPRA) and by commercial training organisations, but the regulatory writing itself is usually taught in-house or self-taught, and a lot of it is learned by doing. Training in veterinary medical communication is somewhat better: guidance specific to publication writing in veterinary medicine is limited, but one booklet, though mostly broad and basic, offers practical tips specific to the field, and a variety of courses in research writing and veterinary scientific writing are available.
Routes in from veterinary practice
One veterinarian's route started in the clinic: soon after starting in practice, she found it almost impossible to tell clients everything they needed to know during an office visit or an emergency home visit, so she wrote handouts on basic issues such as puppy nutrition and vaccination. Finding that she enjoyed writing, she moved back to her native state to complete coursework in journalism, and while keeping her day job she submitted health articles to pet magazines.
She also scanned popular veterinary journals and applied for writing jobs, which led to a part-time post as associate editor of a veterinary practice magazine, whose editor became her mentor by long-distance telephone. She applied for anything called technical writing or technical editing, and searched her profession's membership directory and wrote to the nine veterinarians it listed in technical writing. The editor of the Merck Veterinary Manual replied that technical writing was not what they did there, and she realised that she had the terminology wrong, but they were doing exactly what she wanted. She wrote to him every six months, and after two years he wrote that there were openings; she was hired in 1988.
She found AMWA by searching the public library for a relevant professional association, registered for that year's conference because it was held not far from her employer's headquarters, and has been an active member ever since. To catch up on the formal writing training she lacked, she took courses at every annual conference and earned core curriculum certificates in writing and editing and in pharmaceutical writing, and an advanced certificate. Over the years she has told everyone considering a career change who talked to her that the number one thing they can do is join AMWA, and many who joined came back to say they had never before been in a professional association this welcoming and friendly.
She stayed with the company until 2001, when it moved to Georgia and she left to form a freelance enterprise, building a sizable client list and concentrating on books, which she prefers to journal articles. In 2011 she was serving as president of the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences.
Another veterinarian became a medical writer by chance. She practised as a veterinary surgeon for a few years, then took a research doctorate on the blood parasites of dogs, a question that arose from an animal-charity project treating stray animals on the Cape Verde islands with very limited diagnostic means, and while writing up the results she found that she particularly enjoyed that part of the study.
After the doctorate she joined a consultancy in Austria in 2009 to build up the medical writing part of its services, and she came to head a small medical writing team there. To get formal training for her writing she joined EMWA in 2012 and attended as many conferences as her employer allowed, and she later became a supporting member of an EMWA special interest group.
Nontraditional careers beyond academia and the public sector were not widely discussed at one veterinarian's school, and she learned of medical writing only several months after qualifying; by 2021 she had eight years of medical writing behind her, four of them freelance. She offers eight lessons to a veterinarian moving into medical writing:
- Think outside the clinical box: do not force private practice where it does not suit, and where practice suits but not full time, consider medical writing as a part-time pursuit that translates veterinary training into the credible pet-care information owners are hungry for.
- Be ready for "So, why aren't you a real vet?", and use it to explain the versatility of a veterinary degree beyond private practice.
- Assess transferable skills, such as attention to detail, critical thinking, scientific and medical expertise and strong written communication, and write them down.
- Research the profession and find which area of medical writing appeals most. She had enjoyed writing discharge summaries and case notes in clinical rotations and decided on medical writing after a career symposium, then joined AMWA, read old issues of its journal, attended local chapter meetings and held informational interviews with medical writers.
- Consider human or veterinary writing. Veterinarians switch between the two with relative ease, so both are equally reasonable career options, though a veterinarian who chooses human medical writing should be ready to show a client or employer why they are qualified. Her own first posts, at agencies working in human oncology and haematology, did not suit her, and freelancing showed her that veterinary writing, and pet-owner education in particular, was her niche.
- Talk to other veterinarians who write, since they understand the background and can help with the transition. Being the only veterinarian at her agencies was a fish-out-of-water experience until she connected with others on LinkedIn and through AMWA.
- Get involved in AMWA, locally and then nationally, since being active pays dividends in learning about employment and freelance opportunities, and search its directory for veterinarians to email.
- Recognise what a veterinarian brings: an understanding of how human and veterinary medicine interconnect, and of the need for human and veterinary experts to collaborate on public health challenges and infectious disease.
In her view, a veterinarian who trades the stethoscope for a pen is still a real veterinarian.
Routes in from human medicine
One medical journalist who moved from human to veterinary medicine was surprised to find that veterinary medicine was real medicine, not just giving shots and de-worming: oncologists giving chemotherapy, orthopaedic surgeons replacing hips, cardiologists implanting defibrillators. She had a master's degree in biomedical writing and eighteen years in medical journalism, sixteen of them as a medical writer at a publisher where she edited physician tabloids covering infectious disease, paediatrics, cardiology, oncology and diabetes, and she moved to a veterinary company, where she became executive editor, for personal reasons, to be closer to her family. Two years after the move she won AMWA's 2008 Eric Martin Award in the professional category for an article on cognitive dysfunction in senior dogs.