Building evidence before a first writing job
Employers and clients ask for experience that an entrant does not yet have. Before a first post, that experience can be built through self-study, mentoring, first articles and writing samples, internships, small paid and unpaid writing jobs, and networking.
Learning about the work
Anyone contemplating a career change will probably hear two pieces of advice: learn as much as possible about the new career, and meet the people who actually do it. One researcher leaving the academic bench for medical writing began with self-study. He learned what medical writers do day to day, where they come from, what backgrounds they have and who employs them, read numerous FDA and ICH documents, studied textbooks on drug development and clinical trials, and found the internet, in particular the EMWA and AMWA websites, a valuable resource.
For regulatory writers early in their careers, merely reading about regulatory writing will not be enough. Attending conferences such as EMWA's and exchanging experience with established writers will undoubtedly help, but there is no substitute for direct experience, preferably with a mentor available to advise and guide in tricky situations.
Mentoring
Two providers of a mentoring programme for people moving into regulatory medical writing found that the academic professionals they had met by 2019 who wanted to move into medical writing possessed all the attributes needed to flourish as medical writers, but that the majority struggled to gain the experience a position in the field requires. Universities and other bodies offer training or mentoring for people wishing to make the transition, and many medical writers give their own free time to it. Such mentoring is invaluable, they hold, but although advice on a writer's daily life, company profiles and interview tips helps, it may not make a mentee more likely to be hired.
They suggest that mentors go a little deeper, giving mentees greater exposure to what they do every day, such as by showing them real clinical trial documents without breaching confidentiality agreements or by giving a formal review of their written work, so that mentees have something to talk about at interview. In 2019 some were already doing this, such as the Cheeky Scientist Association and the Health Writer Hub, and the two providers' own firm, Azur Health Science, was trying the same. Those making the move, they advise, should not expect it to be handed to them: a new challenge lies ahead, to be faced willingly and humbly one step at a time, and they should network honestly and find a mentor to give themselves the best chance of finding and flourishing in a first medical writing position.
First articles and writing samples
In 2022 the My First Medical Writing section of EMWA's journal offered aspiring medical writers eager to gain experience in the field an opportunity to publish their work and start creating a portfolio. In 2019 the section published one of the first articles by an aspiring medical writer, a physicist with a doctorate in neuroscience and a postdoctoral post studying pain mechanisms, who was exploring careers in academia and industry while developing her medical writing skills, and the section editor who worked with her saw her grow day by day from constructive feedback.
One freelance, with a college major in English and a minor in science, started with short feature articles for small publications that had pages to fill and needed unique text, such as city newsletters, travel folders and quarterly magazines. Soon a few sports and travel magazines accepted articles on local scuba diving, which gave the writer a short publication list and writing samples to show. In 2018 employers did not interview readily, in this writer's view, so a new writer's personality might not yield a job, but a prospective writer can benefit from familiarity with online or physical libraries of medical, pharmaceutical and engineering subjects, and from observing and internalising the classic writing and format style, whose basic format for delivering scientific information remains title, introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusion. An employer or publisher will eventually want a writing sample, possibly a 300-word abstract, and using this format organises the work for sale.
In one freelance's view, AMWA courses are one way to build a portfolio of writing clips: where applicable, the instructor can be asked whether a written assignment may be used as a clip to show prospective clients or employers, and even where it cannot, the knowledge gained puts the course-taker in a better position than someone outside AMWA to write something worthwhile.
Small paid and volunteer writing
One freelance suggests that new medical communicators open their minds as to what counts as medical writing or editing, since they must have some experience, and likely ability, in writing or editing, or they would not have chosen this career. Writing or editing scientific manuscripts, abstracts, posters and slide decks for oneself or laboratory colleagues, and writing newsletter articles or blog posts for universities or hospitals, all count as medical communication. She went freelance straight from a postdoctoral fellowship and did not think her own first jobs were medical writing: e-learning storyboards for online high-school Advanced Placement chemistry and biology courses, articles for a genomics newsletter started by graduate-school colleagues, and help writing a forensic science master's thesis. She later realised they were, and they taught her a great deal about medical communication and about running a successful freelance business, though they had nothing to do with the writing she does now. Trying many kinds of communication can also help narrow down the kinds of writing or editing a writer does and does not like to do.
One writer, describing her start in a 2018 talk, had applied for jobs even when she did not have the qualifications, hoping something would work out, until someone who saw her potential offered her $25 an hour to write grants, although she was not qualified for the position. She learned everything she could as she went, and the grants she worked on were eventually funded for more than $100 million, which increased her value as a grant writer and brought more work writing grants and manuscripts. At the time of the talk she worked full time for an academic medical institution with freelance work on the side, and she later became a senior medical writer at a large research support firm.
She noted that those new to medical writing face the challenge of getting a job and gaining experience when many job postings call for two years of it. She suggested getting mentors to guide the way, using web searches to learn new types of medical writing skills, and learning by doing, and gave these other ways to gain experience:
- Volunteer to write grants or other medically focused documents for nonprofit organisations or AMWA.
- Browse FoundationCenter.org for grant-writing opportunities.
- Write articles for the AMWA Journal or other publications.
- Leverage any undergraduate, graduate or doctoral work that involved scientific writing.
- Apply for entry-level jobs in the field and work in house, for example at a university.
- Do not be afraid to apply for jobs, even ones a newcomer may not feel qualified for or that may not be perfect.
- Notice writing errors on websites relevant to the field; offering to copyedit could get a foot in the door, for example of a nonprofit research organisation.
Networking
The age-old question, as one freelance put it in 2018, is how a newcomer gains experience if employers and clients want experienced writers and nobody is willing to take a chance on a newcomer. This freelance's four most important tips for gaining writing experience were to network within AMWA, take AMWA courses, use a LinkedIn profile, and sign every email with complete contact information.
A writer should set up and maintain a free LinkedIn profile to advertise their skills, knowledge and abilities, and be active in LinkedIn forums, answering questions in their areas of expertise to become known as someone who shares useful information generously. A writer who becomes known and respected online may eventually be offered the opportunity to write.
Combining several routes
One writer, in 2008 a freelance writer and a doctoral epidemiology student with a bachelor's degree in biology and nutritional science and a master's in public health in epidemiology, had several medically related internships and part-time jobs before her first full-time post: editor at her college newspaper, a science journalism internship at a medical school, a pandemic influenza preparedness internship at a county health department, an internship on a government peer-reviewed public health journal, and freelance writing. As a less-experienced writer she did freelance work for a medical writer she had met at a networking dinner, which helped her tremendously and led to several projects in different therapeutic areas.
Another candidate decided during her PhD in Germany that academia was not a viable career for her and turned to medical writing, but her applications drew hardly any response; although a PhD equips a candidate with most of the skills an industry position needs, she found that companies were not convinced and looked for industry experience. She approached Trilogy Writing and Consulting, which took her on as an intern for two months, and the internship gave her experience of actual regulatory documents and a look at how the medical writing industry worked. Prompted by a saying she came across on LinkedIn, "If you don't ask, the answer is always no", she asked a few medical writers for advice. Most of them encouraged her to attend an EMWA conference, where she attended a few workshops and seminars and met a mentor from Azur Health Science, under whom she took a long-distance mentoring programme and learned the basics of regulatory writing. After the internship her applications drew a more positive response, which she guessed was because companies saw the two industry experiences on her CV. In Germany learning the language is another key factor, and it helped that she already had B2-level German. She then had two job interviews for regulatory affairs posts.
One biology PhD who did not secure an internship at the internship forum held with EMWA's 2016 conference found six months later that the move from academia was a catch-22: despite some years in the diagnostic industry and a good writing record, the applicant faced scarce entry-level opportunities and, while still applying for medical writing jobs, looked for other ways to earn the relevant experience. Those ways were networking with new and experienced medical writers through personal contacts and events such as a publication planning meeting, and taking online courses and the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society's Regulatory Affairs Certificate Program to gain clinical research and regulatory affairs knowledge and build competence specifically in regulatory medical writing. The lesson the applicant drew was not to keep to a single path into medical writing, but to use writing skills and the new knowledge for positions in regulatory affairs and clinical trial management, which to an extent share functions with medical writing.