Readiness for freelance medical writing
Readiness combines the ability to deliver work a client wants with the ability to run a business. Practitioners differ on how much prior experience is enough, while surveys show that employed medical-writing experience is not the only route into full-time freelancing.
A service that can be delivered independently
The practical test is whether the writer has a skill set that a potential client would want to buy. One experienced regulatory writer considers extensive submission experience unnecessary for every freelance role, because clients, including contract research organisations (CROs), also need individual clinical study reports and protocols. He recommends considering freelancing when that deliverable service is in place.
His advice to someone without regulatory experience is to consider one or two years at a CRO first, although he knows a study delivery leader who entered freelance regulatory writing directly and was still practising about ten years later. He considers a direct start possible with confidence and training, while acknowledging that experience helps.
Training and experience should be sufficient for the writer to deliver independently in the intended niche; one practitioner considers two clinical study reports without experience of other regulatory documents insufficient preparation to market a broad regulatory-writing service. Preparation also depends on the work being offered: regulatory documents, lay health writing, continuing medical education and pharmaceutical marketing require different additional skills. A personal assessment of training, experience, strengths and limitations should precede deciding where to market services.
Experience expected by clients
A buyer who uses freelancers recommends employment as a medical writer before attempting freelancing after a doctorate, because the work requires knowledge and experience beyond the degree. She screens CVs for experience and does not hire writers without it. She acknowledges successful exceptions and suggests that a university may accept a recent doctoral graduate to help with its publications.
Other practitioners similarly recommend developing writing skills and learning the industry within a company before working independently. Their reasoning is that a new freelancer may be called urgently when a client's usual solutions have failed, leaving little room for a hiring mistake; referrals or relevant knowledge can supply confidence that the writer will deliver. Staff employers may have more time, resources and willingness to train a newcomer while paying them.
Recommendations for the amount of experience vary. One practitioner proposes five years in a writing environment involving deadlines, changing demands, client needs, style guides, project trafficking, journal requirements and colleagues; another advocates at least a few thousand hours, generally acquired through employment because apprenticeships and internships are limited. A medical communications consultant recommends an extensive portfolio before starting a freelance business. Another practitioner recommends substantial medical-writing experience in employment or another capacity, including written and published articles even for physicians and experienced doctoral scientists.
Scientific qualifications and publications do not guarantee that clients will respond. One postdoctoral scientist who lost her position in a funding cut tried freelancing after finding employed roles asking for two or three years of writing experience. Despite an advanced science degree, postdoctoral training and published research, she received few replies during her first months and found that freelance clients also expected experience.
One writer who joined a CRO in 2015 and later considered freelancing worried that clients would not hire someone with only two or three years' experience; she advises trusting one's craft and seeking support from peers or the professional association where needed.
Qualifications, demonstrated skill and survey findings
A coach working with people leaving healthcare and academia argues that no specific credential is necessary for freelance success. That does not remove the need for client-ready writing: she reports spending substantial time helping some aspiring writers improve their work and samples to a standard clients would accept.
One experienced communicator similarly distinguishes proving writing ability and learning the necessary subject matter from possessing an advanced scientific or medical degree. Another considers no single background ideal, but still recommends ample medical or scientific writing experience before freelancing and warns against moving directly from academia or another discipline when a good living is expected.
AMWA's 2019 Medical Communication Compensation Survey included 1,418 respondents, of whom 480 were freelancers and 179 full-time freelancers. Among full-time freelancers answering the prior-experience question (n = 177), 31% had been employed as medical communicators for a decade or more before exclusive freelancing and 31% had no employed medical-communications experience. Among those with bachelor's degrees, 43% had more than ten years' prior experience, while 52% of those with doctorates had started without prior employment experience in medical communications. The analysis concluded that success without previous medical-communicator experience was possible and more common among those with advanced degrees than bachelor's degrees; its convenience sample produced descriptive findings whose representativeness was uncertain.
Business knowledge and personal readiness
Being a capable medical communicator does not automatically supply the separate skills needed to freelance. A further readiness framework combines experience, contacts and insight into the realities of freelancing; a portfolio spanning disciplines, media and audiences can position a writer for varied projects. One practitioner's four requirements are:
- Experience: preparation in a professional writing environment.
- Education: learning the business of freelancing, rather than acquiring another formal qualification; association workshops and peer networking are suggested routes.
- Enthusiasm: daily self-motivation to perform well, because the last assignment matters to the next opportunity.
- Endurance: readiness to perform marketing, collections, research, proofreading, computer troubleshooting and scientific work, potentially within the same day.
Another readiness checklist asks whether the prospective freelancer has:
- Enough training and experience to work independently in the chosen writing area.
- Working knowledge of potential clients, how to contact them, their needs and the competition.
- Finances sufficient for a lean beginning, including all payments and health insurance if steady work takes as long as a year to develop, plus necessary equipment and software; discomfort with unsteady income may make freelancing unsuitable.
- A temperament suited to working alone, managing distractions and maintaining discipline and self-control.
Substantial writing experience should be accompanied by understanding business structure and operations and willingness to perform the many functions a business requires. Further recommended qualities include commitment to self-employment, energy, time management, flexibility across varied projects, continual learning, making contacts, handling rejection, patience, persistence and a sense of humour. Other practitioners emphasise logical thinking, seeing the big picture while attending to detail, sustained concentration and tolerance of quiet independent work; a thick skin also helps with revisions and criticism.
In EMWA's 2023 Freelance Business Survey, respondents could select all skills they considered important for success. Beyond medical writing, selections included project management and delivery (79.4%), work–life balance (62.8%), networking (59.2%), marketing (32.7%), statistics (27.4%), accounting (20.6%) and website design (5.8%).
Preparation does not eliminate obstacles or mistakes. One experienced freelancer considers belief in oneself and willingness to take risks indicators of readiness; without them, she considers freelancing probably unsuitable.