Medical communications and agency roles
A writer moving from research or clinical practice into a medical communications agency weighs who the work is for and whom it is done among, which of a research or clinical training's skills the agency writer uses and which are new, what the working life is like set against the one being left, and how to get in and where the career leads.
Who the work is for and whom it is done among
A medic's main stakeholder is the patient, with whom a very special relationship develops, but in medical communications the major stakeholder is the client, who is ultimately paying the writer's salary. The relationship is a different one that a writer gets used to, but it is a commercial world. For a former researcher who became an agency copywriter, the most important novelty was a responsibility to provide services to a client, the pharmaceutical company.
Inside the agency, the writer deals with account managers, who handle the relationship between the agency and each client, with fellow writers and with senior management. Outside it are the medical experts, once called key opinion leaders and now thought leaders, who are world-famous consultants in specialties or disease areas. These experts are very much part of the process of research and of getting medicines and medical devices out so that everybody can learn about them and use them. The writer also works with nurses, technicians, pharmacists, patient advocates and patients, with whom one writer recorded video interviews that were used for education, and may from time to time work with other agencies or journalists. The former researcher's coworkers in the agency held jobs he had never heard of, such as director of medical strategies, art director, creative executive, digital specialist and account director, and came from different backgrounds, experience and expertise. In his experience, building relationships with clients and external experts is part of the copywriter's life, and it can sometimes be a real challenge.
Some agencies give a medical writer a role similar to an editor-in-chief, distributing writing tasks among external physicians and coordinating publication tasks for newsletters and brochures. This role may not be the most rewarding part of the profession, because direct communication with extremely occupied physicians, whose contributions matter from the first stage of a project to the last, can be frustrating. Unwanted delays usually arise even when the writer reminds the physicians of deadlines, and as timelines are usually tight, the writer has to remain persistent. Being able to relate well to physicians in extremely difficult situations is a must for a medical writer. Stressful situations may come up, but they are also an opportunity to build a close personal relationship with the physicians involved.
In the view of the head of one company in the field, the work crosses many disciplines and is demanding and rewarding in equal measure, and although cold, hard data are central to it, human relationships are ultimately key. So he advises a writer starting out to be as open and honest as possible, however difficult things get, because by gaining a reputation for integrity and by getting the detail right a writer can build the enduring, trusting relationships that will take them places, literally and metaphorically.
What the work asks of a writer from research or the clinic
MedComms writers come from diverse backgrounds, which indicates that the skills are highly transferable from either academia or industry. Most have a scientific background and are usually highly qualified. Some work for agencies and others in-house, and in 2016 an increasing number were turning to freelancing. They are very flexible, delving into one scientific area, pulling out the essential information and then diving into another, and they usually juggle several projects at the same time.
The field requires deep scientific understanding, creativity, storytelling ability and people skills. Strong scientific understanding and meticulous attention to detail are key, and the work also requires strong people skills for client interactions, collaboration with authors and key opinion leaders, and teamwork within the agency.
In medical education work, the medical writing team usually liaises directly with medical experts on scientific committees or with project partner physicians, and the writers produce scientifically sound medical content. They need a strong background in medicine or another natural science, because they have to understand the medical literature and write or quality-control many types of medical and scientific document for audiences from the most to the least specialised, in formats such as slide kits, video and digital media. So they have to familiarise themselves with various diseases and search out interesting and innovative related topics that can meet the client's strategic goals, which may involve not only literature searches on the web and in medical libraries but also identifying and interviewing specialised experts and attending related conferences.
In the view of the former researcher who became an agency copywriter, a PhD's research skills are useful to healthcare communications, at least in part. He holds that university graduates have learned to study by themselves and can easily adapt to new fields, and that former researchers usually have a knack for grasping biotechnology-derived drugs, so scientists are better equipped to understand personalised medicine. Former researchers can produce evidence-based arguments from clinical data, and the data they pick out as part of the agency team can help to strengthen and add credibility to the brand strategy. Agency work is deadline driven, often involves several projects at a time and takes concentrated effort and considerable energy, and in his opinion former researchers are usually prepared for it, because they are used to running several research projects in parallel, working hard and coping with work-related stress. An agency copywriter must also be flexible, open to experimentation, new ideas and external evaluation, and curious, investigative and reflective, examining things from several angles, and these characteristics feature quite readily in most scientists.
Former researchers are, however, usually unprepared for the marketing side of communications. They are accustomed to evaluating scientific information knowing that science is not black and white but sometimes grey, and in healthcare communications greyness is not ideal. Data are presented in a way that differentiates the client's drug from its competitors, which does not mean that safety concerns associated with a drug are disguised or hidden, but does mean that "a copywriter is a salesperson behind a computer". Because the copywriter is also a salesperson, the way the story is told is crucial, and empathising with healthcare professionals or patients, their needs and the world in which they live is key. The goal is to encourage them to try the drug or the service and to give them sound reasons to do so, so the writer needs to write as if they were the target audience, "being in the prospect's shoes", and this ability to create a dialogue with an other and implied reader is essential in writing and in communication generally. That empathy is gained through time and is usually not something a PhD brings into the agency. The same former researcher was surprised to find his scientific skills transferable and useful to life as an agency copywriter, and judges that the switch is maybe not an ideal fit for all PhDs but is definitely an option to consider.
The working life set against the one being left
For one doctor who moved from practice into medical communications, the nature of the work is different, and an important word is control. He feels that a practitioner working with patients cannot go home until the last patient walks out of the consulting room or leaves the operating theatre, and that in some ways a big organisation seems to have quite a lot of control over the practitioner, whereas as a writer he felt he had more control of his own destiny, could prioritise his work more and could take a short break if he wanted to. Medical communications is nonetheless challenging, both academically and in working with many other people. The writer has to deliver for the client, and deadlines are stressful, but he found the level of stress different and, for him, rather lower than in practice. As a GP he found there were times when he dealt with the same condition many times over, whereas medical communications has a huge variety of outputs and no writing project is the same. He guesses that a medic in the NHS does not travel an enormous amount beyond going between home and work, whereas medical communications offers the opportunity to travel to many parts of the world for congresses and meetings. He had great satisfaction as a medical practitioner and feels very satisfied in the work he does in medical communications.
For the former researcher, there may be some differences between laboratory and agency stress, and the obvious one is where it comes from: the stresses of the laboratory are often generated by researchers themselves, whereas agency deadlines primarily come from the client, a kind of stress he finds more manageable. He also notes that agency life is hectic, with numerous and various projects to handle at once and deadlines that are always tight. No two days in MedComms are the same, as a writer learns about new disease areas and products, contributes to a wide range of activities and navigates complex client and stakeholder relationships.
Medical education work in an agency is rewarding for the writer, who learns new skills in multimedia writing, editing and graphic design and develops skills in relating to people from different healthcare backgrounds. The writer also conducts a wide-ranging variety of projects of high scientific value, directly or indirectly related to the drug, and has a chance to genuinely help patients, because the activities consider their implications for general patient care and wellbeing.
Getting in and where the career leads
In 2016, countless companies offered medical communications services, and there was a need for qualified medical communicators.
Entry requirements vary by agency: some require a doctorate, while others hire candidates with a strong scientific background shown by a bachelor's or master's degree alongside demonstrated writing ability. Competition for entry-level roles is often fierce, so an applicant should research the specific role, make sure they meet its entry requirements and confirm that its scope fits their interests and experience. An applicant without peer-reviewed publications of their own can offer other evidence of writing capability, such as university or industry magazine articles or project reports, which can be valuable, if not essential. Many agencies require a sample of written work or an assessment, usually of writing and some data presentation or interpretation, and it is important to evidence the people skills the job needs on the CV and to present oneself well at any interview. Most MedComms roles are in agencies, many of which offer structured training programmes and mentorship for entrants from other fields, and professional development is usually supported by ongoing education with bodies such as EMWA and the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP), on-the-job training and exposure to a range of disease areas, clients and content formats. For a freelance, winning work directly from pharmaceutical clients can be challenging, especially without prior agency experience, and work is more likely to come from agencies than directly from pharmaceutical companies, as agencies may use freelances to supplement their in-house teams during peak workloads, for example to deliver large volumes of work around a congress.
With experience, a MedComms career can develop towards increasingly specialist and strategic advice to clients in a particular disease area or type of project, or into managerial and leadership roles within the agency, with line management, mentoring of junior team members, larger teams and higher-value budgets and workstreams. A writer may also go freelance, stay on in the agency as a senior writer or as a specialist in an area of healthcare such as neurology or cardiovascular medicine, or be promoted to run a department of a larger agency as a director, who gets very much involved in running the business as well as taking part in the communication work. MedComms sits at the intersection of science, storytelling and strategy, offering a deeply rewarding path for those who want to use their scientific credentials and communication skills to make a tangible impact. The field keeps evolving, in 2026 driven most recently by digital content, personalised channels and AI, and this creates ongoing opportunities to grow and develop across a long career.