Listening to the Journals

I love reading and writing, but sometimes my eyes need a break. That's when the word processor goes off and my media player gets turned on.

Almost since it's inception, I've been a big fan of podcasting. Originally, a podcast was a digital recording of a radio show that was then made available over the Internet for download. You could also subscribe to podcasts through a syndication feed so that your favourite show was always ready for listening. These days, it's not just radio shows that are available via podcast. Many magazines and journals create podcasts to complement their print or online content, and medical journals are at the forefront of this revolution.

Usually a podcast from a medical journal will include an overall description of what you can expect to find in the current print edition, as well as a more in-depth look at one or two of the feature stories from the issue. This may include interviews with one or more of the study authors and analysis by other leading professionals in the field.

As a medical writer, listening to podcasts is a great alternative way to stay on top of breaking medical news and discoveries, as well as current opinion. I usually include a mix of medical and science journals in my subscriptions, as well as some general interest science magazines. I listen to them while driving, making dinner, waiting for the train, or over a cup of tea in the afternoon.

Some of the podcasts that I've been enjoying recently include:

The Lancet
New England Journal of Medicine
Journal of the American Medical Association
Science
Nature
New Scientist
Scientific American
The Scientist

Some television news shows and stations have also embraced podcasting in what's now known as vodcasting, or video podcasting; but that's for another blog entry.

Medical Writing Symposium in Ottawa

AMWA-Canada has announced the 'line-up' for its medical writing symposium that will be held on April 18th at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute in Ottawa, Ontario. The symposium offers four AMWA credit workshops in two streams followed by a networking dinner. The workshops are nice cross-section of different styles and levels of medical writing. It looks like there is something for everyone. Note, that you do not need to be enrolled in the AMWA certificate programs in order to attend the workshops.

Here are the workshops on offer:

Writing and Designing Materials for Patient Education (EW/PRAM) [Course#224] Through lecture and discussion, writers with little or no experience in writing for patients will work through the “what, who, and how” of a patient education piece: planning, research, writing, design, production, and evaluation. Participants will critique sample booklets and review the homework. APPROXIMATE HOMEWORK TIME:2-3 HOURS. Workshop Leader: Sharon Nancekivell

Improving Comprehension: Theories and Research Findings (EW/ED) [Course#207] This lecture and discussion session for both experienced and novice writers will cover theories and findings from the scientific study of written communication. Applying these findings to medical writing can produce measurable differences in how well readers locate, comprehend, and use information. Participants will explore ways to apply the concepts to improve the readability of a piece of medical writing. APPROXIMATE HOMEWORK TIME: 3 HOURS. Workshop Leader: Tom Lang

Principles of Pharmacoeconomics (EW/PH) [Course#216] This workshop will introduce the principles of pharmaco-economics to medical writers unfamiliar with this field.The lecture will cover trial design, cost determination, sensitivity analysis, and research perspective in a nonmathematical manner. Groupwork will emphasize application of these principles to published materials. APPROXIMATE HOMEWORK TIME: 1-2 hours. Workshop Leader: Christopher J. Longo

Reporting Randomized Trials in Science Journals (ADV) [Course#719] This workshop is designed for experienced medical writers who want to report clinical research studies with a high degree of sophistication. The form and function of each component of the research article will be reviewed; however, emphasis will be placed on how to report all aspects of randomized controlled clinical trials. Participants will practice applying a set of detailed guidelines for reporting specific aspects of study design, research activities, and outcomes. APPROXIMATE HOMEWORK TIME: 3 HOURS. Workshop Leader: Tom Lang

For more information, visit the AMWA-Canada website

Medical Writing Programs

One of the questions that I'm frequently asked by students or via my website is, "are there any medical writing programs in Canada?" The answer, sadly, is no. Whereas a couple of Universities in the USA currently have Medical Writing programs, none exist in Canada.

The University of Toronto offers two MSc programs in Biomedical Communications, however neither focus on medical writing; they focus on medical artwork. The first program is in Biomedical Media Design. It prepares students to design and create interactive media tools. The second program, Biomedical Visual Design, is for students interested in medical illustration or producing animations of biological and physiological structures and processes. Tuition for current offerings is about $7,500.

Some post-secondary educational institutions in Canada offer stand-alone ‘science writing’ courses to students enrolled in undergraduate, graduate or post-doc science programs. For example, in Montreal, McGill University offers two courses on science writing designed to help budding scientists write better manuscripts for submission to journals. These courses appear to be open to graduate students and post-docs only, and are often not specific to medical writing.

Concordia University Continuing Education is currently the only post-secondary educational institution in Canada to offer courses in medical writing to part-time students; and no Canadian institutions are offering any kind of medical writing diploma or certificate program on a part-time basis.

Distance education through online course offerings is a welcome learning option for many professionals seeking to advance their skills or make a career change. Currently, in Canada, only Concordia University Continuing Education offers an online course in medical writing.

Professional development courses in medical and science writing are occasionally offered by groups like the American Medical Writers’ Association (AMWA) Canada, the Professional Writers’ Association of Canada (PWAC), and the Quebec Writers Federation (QWF), but these are usually few and far between and none are available online. AMWA, through it’s USA headquarters, offers a certificate program in medical writing that consists of about eight, three-hour workshops. Many Canadian AMWA members complete this program by attending chapter or national conferences. Costs for professional development offerings range from $150 for each three-hour seminar offered by AMWA as part of their certificate program, to about $200 for a 10-week series of two-hour classes offered by the QWF. Stand-alone workshops offered through PWAC or similar groups may be $10-$50 and free for members.

What Do We Do Again?

In my Internet wanderings this week for course material for an online medical writing class that I teach, I found a nice, short video interview with Susanna Dodgson, PhD, Graduate Program Director for Biomedical Writing at University of the Sciences, Philidelphia, USA. In it she describes what medical writers do. She also offers her opinion on the continuously controversial topic of ghost writing. (The interview was done by pharmedout.org, an organization that aims to counter inappropriate pharmaceutical promotion practices.)



While I don't agree with everything that she says, especially how she breaks down medical writing into only two categories and her insistence that medical writers are scientists, the interview is pretty much 'on the money'. Speaking of, she also talks about money. Our salaries in Canada aren't quite as high as in the USA, but they are close. And certainly, I do agree that medical writers are often some of the best paid writers in the communications industry.

Finding Information: Searching the Literature

After I've given myself an overview of the topic, or if it's an area I'm already familiar with, my next step is to find recent review articles, clinical practice guidelines, or possibly original research on the topic.

My search will almost always invariably start with PubMed/Medline. Other databases exist, but PubMed is by far the most accessible and serves well for most searches. You can use PubMed to search specifically for original articles, letters to the editor, clinical practice guidelines, review articles, meta-anlayses, and a whole lot more. The Pubmed website has comprehensive information about the database and how to search it. Their flash tutorials are fantastic and whether you are already familiar with PubMed searching or not, I highly recommend watching the following ones:

• PubMed Overview
• Searching Pub Med Quick Tours (5 tutorials)
• PubMed's MeSH database Quick Tours (3 tutorials)
• Getting Started with My NCBI
• Saving Searches
• Filters

Once you've located articles that look interesting, your next step is to acquire them. Some are available for free, others you may have to pay for.

The PubMed citation usually indicates if an article is available for free by putting a clickable icon on the top right-hand corner that reads something like "Free Fulltext Available." If it doesn't look like full text is available for free, click through to the journal site anyway if PubMed provides a link to it. Sometimes articles become available for free after a set period of time, and PubMed may not ahve the updated information. If it still looks like you have to pay, try going to the journal website and accessing the particulat jounral issue from there. Occasionally that yields different results than the PubMed click-through.

If you still don't get access to the journal article, you still have a few options:

• See if you can get the article through a local library
• Contact one of the authors or the press office at the institution where the article was authored to see if you can get a free copy fo the article
• Order (and pay) for the article online through the journal or its agent
• Order (and pay) for the article through a document delivery service like CISTI

Once again, Dalhousie University has an excellent online article that is worth looking at (Access to Journals) which describes ways to get your hands on actual copies of journal articles