Medical writing in France
Medical writing in France involves questions of professional recognition, funding, employment classification and national networks.
Awareness among potential clients
In June 2017, French medical writers discussing increasingly complex disclosure requirements for lay summaries, clinical study reports and similar documents did not know how many researchers in France understood them or had resources to produce the documents in English. They saw a possible opportunity to provide support but anticipated budget difficulties because some sectors lacked funding for medical writing.
Professional recognition and funding
In June 2017, a Paris group identified a general lack of awareness of medical writing as a career in France; freelance members reported professional classifications ranging from artist to training journalist. Some could not obtain EMWA conference funding because EMWA was not recognised as a training organisation for their professional codes, while others had unsuitable indemnity insurance because insurers struggled to classify their relative risk.
Participants reported few medical-writing job advertisements, finding jobs by chance and repeatedly explaining their role to internal customers. Basic scientists were also unfamiliar with the career, prompting a proposal to promote medical writing to PhD students and postdocs at local career days in September or October 2017 using EMWA presentation materials. Research groups struggled to fund publication support because manuscript writing was still considered the researcher’s responsibility, making a medical-writing post appear an additional cost; raising the profession’s profile was the proposed first step.
A national network
The 12 June 2017 Paris gathering of medical writers, translators and communicators was their fourth meeting since the previous year. Freelances proposed a board for agency and overflow jobs, with this plan:
- Find a better name for the group.
- Create a website to raise awareness of the group and medical writing.
- Share jobs through the LinkedIn group, then transfer them to the website once it existed.
By June 2023, the informal English-speaking group meeting in Paris had attracted French-speaking writers and become Medical Writer’s Hub France, including freelance and pharmaceutical medical writers, medcomms writers, translators and medical-communication activists. Its organisers decided to develop The French League of Writers (FLOW) as a more formal association to improve visibility, solve national problems together and support local projects.