Medical Writing

Medical Editors: An Integral Part of Medical Writing Team

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Like medical writers, medical editors (or scientific editors) do play a crucial role in the field of scientific writing and medical communication. They are the proactive members of the team, who provide appropriate suggestions for adopting the reader’s point of view and help improve the overall quality of the write-up. The suggestions might be about the scientific language, flow, and clarity of the write-up.

What are the responsibilities of a medical editor?
An ideal medical editor deals with various editorial services, including medical editing, copy editing and fact-checking. They need to understand the complete lifecycle of the project and submission tasks for various clients. They are responsible for:

  • Editing the language clarity and consistency of the write-up.
  • Ensuring scientific accuracy, correct balance, tone, flow, and overall cohesiveness of the document.
  • Checking grammar, spelling, and typographical errors.
  • Formatting and accurate referencing.
  • Formatting the text in accordance with the medical journal guidelines.
  • Managing priorities and deadlines of the project.
  • Querying the writer about the logical flow, organization, and missing information in the content.
  • Maintaining agency style guides to keep current client requirement.
  • Coordinating the work of other team members to complete the project delivery on time.

Where do they work?
The best workplace for a medical editor is at a large scientific publishing house or a pharmaceutical or healthcare organization. However, they may also find great opportunities in the academic publishing house, online publications, and medical communication companies. Also, a medical editor can begin their own medical editing business to gain identity and success. But, a lot of efforts are needed to start, operate, and grow the business.

What are the qualities required to be a medical editor?
In addition to the educational qualification in the field of medicine or science, medical editors require certain qualities that enable them to work with writers, manage day-to-day tasks, and maintain good coordination and workflow from the whole team. A medical editor must have an eye for detail to ensure that the content is error-free. They must have good written and spoken language skills to communicate effectively. Additionally, they must have excellent writing skill, which helps them to reorganize the content to attain clarity and flow. They should also have adequate knowledge for reference sourcing to check the content accuracy.

Acquiring the qualities of a medical editor might not be a huge task, but maintaining it throughout your career path could be challenging. Try out these tips, they could be of great help:

  • Learn about the list of medical style-guides used in your country.
  • Keep your medical knowledge up to date by reading the latest medical journals.
  • Get well-versed with all the medical terminologies.
  • Attend annual medical editing meetings or conferences to refine your skills.

If you have a creative spark with great language skills and wish to make a future in the field of medicine or science, then a medical editor job is worth trying.

    Scientific Writing

    What are the different types of manuscripts?

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    A scientific manuscript is a thorough, factual, and logically written document containing scientific communication from the researchers/scientists to the scientific community or others. These scientific communications can be about a recent research, any interesting case, a literature update or a fresh viewpoint of an old problem. The researchers/scientists may invest a significant amount of time and efforts in writing and publishing their manuscript in a journal. Every journal has their own set of publication guidelines for the authors. It is mandatory for an author to follow them to get their manuscript published without any hassle. There are various types of manuscripts, the few that are widely accepted by the journals are as listed:

    Original research article
    An original research article is a report on a recent trial performed by the researchers. These articles present the author’s original study findings and so are termed as primary literature. The standard structure of these article includes the Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, List of illustrations, Appendix and References cited. However, the author must refer to and follow the guidelines provided by the journal. The original research articles are extensive and may have a word limit ranging from 4000-12,000, thus demanding a substantial effort and time investment by the author. These articles usually address a specific study and suggests for further research and investigation of a study.

    Review article
    A review article is a summary of other published articles on a given concept or idea. They are not original research articles and are considered as secondary literature. These articles summarize the existing literature about a topic without having the reader to read all the papers. Review articles usually contain the details about the published work, identifies specific gaps or problems in the study, and provides recommendations for future research. These articles do not have a required page limit or maximum number of references. The author should include appropriate figures, tables and a concise abstract. Review articles can be of three types- narrative reviews, systematic review, and meta-analysis. A well-written review article published in a good peer-reviewed journal may have a high impact and receive a lot of citations in other papers.

    Clinical case studies
    Clinical case studies are published by a practitioner to document the knowledge that they gain in their clinical practice. The case studies can be written about an unusual case, adverse event, side effects or new mode of treatment for the existing conditions. Not all the journals accept them; there are some dedicated journals like BMJ Case Reports which accept these studies. Though the format of a case study may vary with the journals, the usual format includes, abstract, introduction, case report and discussion. These case studies are evidence-based original submission that can be a great contribution to the medical science.

    Clinical trial reports
    The clinical trial reports present detailed information about a clinical trial on a large subject base. The report includes sections such as abstract, background, methods followed, results obtained and the analysis of the results. These reports are similar to the original research article, in terms of structure and length.

    Perspectives/View
    These write-ups contain the views or perspectives of an author or researcher on a specific topic. Although the opinion in the report is of the author, the thoughts and ideas are evidence-based and backed by scientific evidence. The contributing authors are usually the experts in their field; many journals also invite these experts to provide their opinion as a written report.

    A medical writer who contributes to any journal must be aware of the different formats that a journal accepts, and the style guide they follow for their publications. A detailed knowledge of these points can help the writer create reports that adhere to the journal’s content specifications and publishing requirements.