The Health & Medical Writing Career Kickstart Guide to Freelance Medical Writing

Wondering if health writing is right for you? This guide is your no-pressure starting point and your roadmap to a flexible, fulfilling and financially rewarding writing career. Whether you’re exploring a career change or wondering how your background fits into the industry, you’ll get a clear picture of what health writing involves and how to move forward. This guide is your first step towards exploring health writing – it’s designed to help you discover if this exciting career path is right for you, without any pressure to dive into a full course just yet.

What Does a Freelance Medical Writer Do?

A freelance medical writer creates scientific and healthcare-related content for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and healthcare clients. Their work may include regulatory documents, clinical study reports, medical journal articles, marketing materials, and patient education content. Freelance medical writers must research complex medical topics, translate scientific information into clear and concise language, and adhere to industry regulations and guidelines. They often work independently, managing their schedules, client relationships, and business operations while ensuring accuracy and compliance in all their writing. In addition, freelance medical writers also create content for presentations and conferences on behalf of clients.

Role and Responsibilities

A medical writer works with scientists, healthcare professionals, and other subject matter experts (SMEs) to create educational, informational, or promotional medical content. Due to the diverse backgrounds of medical writers, each position may contain different duties. However, here are the typical responsibilities of a freelance medical writer:

• Researching topics in detail while relying on educational resources for information.
• Integrating various information sources into a uniform style and language for regulatory compliance.
• Writing and editing clinical study reports (CSRs) and common technical documentation (CTD) summaries for submission to regulatory agencies.
• Gathering, analyzing, and summarizing data from statistical tables and other sources.
• Going through scientific topics and assisting healthcare professionals in writing research-related articles, monographs, and reviews.
• Proposing and managing timelines for document preparation and review.
• Working with other writers and editors to optimize written content, add new information, and ensure written text has proper citations.
• Preparing annual reports, brochures, presentations, and training materials as per the needs of the audience.
• Performing regular literature searches to identify new information on assigned tasks.
• Keeping good knowledge of current industry practices and regulations.

Who Hires Health and Medical Writers?

Government representatives, investigators, healthcare organizations, medical institutes, biotechnology firms, pharmaceutical companies, and medical communications agencies hire medical writers to produce a range of medical documents. These include study reports, clinical trial protocols, publications, information about medical devices, medical books, newspaper articles, healthcare advertisements, and press releases. Another aspect of the job is regulatory medical writing, which focuses on creating documentation that regulatory agencies require to approve drugs, biologics, and medical devices.

Education and Skills Needed to Succeed

Becoming a freelance medical writer involves education, experience, and skill development. While some writers have degrees in medicine and science, many completed their degree in journalism, English, and other subjects. A bachelor’s degree can be sufficient to enter the field, provided they supplement their educational background with relevant writing experience or internships. A medical writer must constantly seek new clients and manage multiple aspects of their freelance business, such as marketing, networking, and financial management while staying abreast of the latest industry trends and opportunities.