Medical Writing 101 on June 18th, 2011 in Montreal

I'm really pleased to announce that I will be co-presenting an introduction to medical writing at the Professional Writers' Association of Canada (PWAC) national conference on June 18th, 2011 in Montreal.

Medical Writing 101
Are you curious about medical writing but not sure exactly what it is, what qualifications you need, or what kind of writing work is out there? Join Amanda Strong and Giancarlo La Giorgia as they share their experience writing for the pharmaceutical industry and medical publishers. Learn the basic tools of the trade, how you can build your portfolio, and where to find work.

The professional developmen presentation is mostly an information session about medical writing, the skills and education you need to succeed in it, and how to break into the various sectors of the field. The course fee is $80 ($60 for PWAC members), or free if you register for the full conference ($325 for non-members, $275 for PWAC members).

Here are the other professional development session taking place on the Saturday being presented at the PWAC conference:

• Editors Panel with Susan Nerberg (Deputy Editor, enRoute), Drew Nelles (Editor in Chief, Maisonneuve) and Carmine Starnino (Senior Editor, Reader's Digest)
• Writing for Trade Magazines: Breaking In and Staying In with Suzanne Boles
• Unleash Your Inner Entrepreneur: Panel with Hugh McGuire, Ben Yoskovitz, Jean-Benoit Nadeau & Craig Silverman
• Medical Writing with Amanda Strong and Giancarlo La Giorgia
• Computer-Assisted Reporting in 2011: A Journalist's Guide to Twitter, Facebook, and New Mobile Tools with Elias Makos
• The Pitch of your Life: Writing Book Proposals with Julie Barlow
• On Solid Grounds: Write to Live with Jean-Benoit Nadeau
• Travel & Food Writing with Alexandra Forbes

Complete descriptions, as well as information about other events--such as the Intensive Workshop on Contracts, Negotiation Skills and Small Claims Court--and registration are available on the PWAC site.

Current Workshop Offerings

I have been getting a lot of requests for in-person workshops recently. Here are some workshops that I've offered previously or have ready-to-go.

I strongly believe that students get the most out of workshops if they have to do some work before heading into the classroom, and then the classroom learnings are followed up with post-course assignments. All participants in my workshops gets some sort of personalised feedback on their work; and all workshops include in-class activities and opportunities for participatory learning.

If you're interested in any of these, please let me know. I'm very open to travel outside of Montreal. Typically I ask for a minimum six people to run a class. An overhead projector that I can hook up to my laptop is required for all my workshops. A whiteboard or flipchart to write on during the workshop is also really appreciated.

Finding and Assessing Literature
Duration: 2 hours plus pre-course and post-course assignments
Internet access is required to run this course
This introduction to finding and assess bibliographic literature in the health sciences focuses identifying pertinent, credible and current sources of information for medical writing projects. Topics include getting the most out of PubMed; search engines/databases other than PubMed; and other credible sources of information, like textbooks, authoritative web sites, government databases, NLM Gateway, Cochrane reviews, etc. The workshop also includes tips on developing a search strategy, narrowing down search results, keeping record of your search results, and assessing the strength and relevance of the literature found during the search.

Understanding and Critically Evaluating Clinical Research Articles
Duration: 2 hours plus pre-course and post-course assignments
Medical writers frequently have to assess clinical research articles to determine if they are pertinent, credible and current sources of information. This workshop reviews some of the elements of evidence-based medicine, study design, common ways of presenting data, and basic statistics. Participants will learn how to critical assess methodological quality of a study, and identify its strengths and limitations. The anatomy of a research article will be discussed.

Copy Writing Basics for Pharmaceutical Advertising in Canada
Duration: 3 hours plus pre-course and post-course assignments
Recommended skills: some comfort reading clinical papers; basic knowledge of charts, graphs and tables; prior exposure to pharmaceutical advertising is useful
There are many important differences between pharmaceutical advertising and non-'pharma' advertising, such as a tightly regulated environment, a multilayered approval process, and differences between the 'target' of the advertising and the end user. This workshop reviews the basics of pharmaceutical advertising and copy writing, including approval processes, developing copy, making sure your manuscript has the appropriate balancing copy and footnotes, keeping track of references, and tips for making sure what you write is "layout-friendly".

Developing Slides and Slide Notes for Oral Presentations
Duration: 3 hours plus pre-course and post-course assignments
Good slides and slide notes can make all the difference to an oral presentation, whether it’s a presentation of results at a conference or a CME activity. This workshop will review the basic principles for creative effective slide presentations, including creating a good logical flow of information, effectively conveying key messages, creating slides that complement the oral presentation, avoiding common mistakes, referencing and citing sources of information. Creating slide notes for different types of presentations will also be covered.

Upcoming AMWA Workshop in Montreal

How to ensure your website never makes you any money as a freelancer
American Medical Writer’s Association meeting, Wednesday, Oct 6th, 2010
Location : La Milsa Poisson, 1431 Bishop, Montreal (just North of St. Catherines.)

The American Medical Writer’s Association (AMWA) invites you to our next networking meeting on Wednesday, Oct 6th at 6:45 pm entitled “How to ensure your web site never makes you any money as a freelancer.” Andy Gural presents a tongue in cheek talk about how to improve your web presence. Both AMWA members and non-members are welcome to this dinner meeting. There is no charge other than what you order for your own food and beverages.

Please RSVP to medicalwriter@videotron.ca by Monday, Oct 4th at the latest so I know how many chairs to tell the restaurant to set up, but note that you will not receive a confirmation.

Location : La Milsa Poisson, 1431 Bishop, Montreal (just North of St. Catherines)
514-282-6666
www.lemilsa.com

Organizer:
Crystal Kaczkowski
Freelance Medical Writer/Copywriter
514-585-3077
medicalwriter@videotron.ca
www.medwrite.ca

AMWA Dinner: Professional Uses of Social Media

The Montreal members of AMWA-Canada are planning an informal open roundtable discussion on the Professional Uses of Social Media at Stash Café, Old Montreal, on January 28th. I'm sure there will be some gem of information for everyone, whether you're new to social media or already using some of the tools. Here is there announcement:

AMWA Open Roundtable: Professional Uses of Social Media
How many remember the good old CompuServe, AOL, Prodigy or other proprietary dial-up days? 9600-baud modems? Audio couplers? Those ISP services are the rudimentary forms of the social media we use and mostly take for granted today. The AMWA Canada chapter hosts a moderated discussion of some social networking tools/environments in current use.

Especially useful for medical writers are AMWA's own listserves, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. We’ll also mention the free, self-administered network creation tools Ning and Yahoo Groups.

Bring your own experiences, tips and ideas to share with other medical writers on successfully using social media to enhance your professional context and generate business. Discussion will be moderated by AMWA member Everett Larsen, who also serves as President of STC Montreal.

Where? Our favourite Polish restaurant…

200 Rue Saint-Paul O
Montreal, QC H2Y 1Z9
(514) 845-6611
www.stashcafe.com

6:30-8:30 pm, Thursday, January 28

Please RSVP to medicalwriter@videotron.ca by Monday, January 25th so I can let the restaurant know how many people to expect.

Any technical questions about the content to be covered should be addressed to Everett at larsene@primelink1.net

Everett Larsen & Crystal Kaczkowski

Two Health Canada Tools Worth Bookmarking

I can't count the number of times I refer to Health Canada's Drug Product Database when I'm researching a project. It's a wonderful source of information. Here is the description from the Website:

The DPD contains product specific information on drugs approved for use in Canada. The database is managed by Health Canada and includes human pharmaceutical and biological drugs, veterinary drugs and disinfectant products. It contains approximately 23,000 products which companies have notified Health Canada as being marketed.

Information available in the database includes the following parameters:
1. Brand Name
2. Drug Identification Number (DIN)
3. Company
4. Active Ingredient(s)
5. Route of Administration
6. Product Monograph (PM)
7. Pharmaceutical Form
8. Package Sizes
9. Therapeutic Classification (AHFS and ATC)
10. Active Ingredient Group (AIG) Number
11. Pharmaceutical Standard
12. Veterinary Species

In addition to the DPD, you can also access a database of NOC listings from the Drugs and Health Products section of the Health Canada Website. This is a great tool if you need to find out what drugs have been approved under a specific therapeutic class. Sometimes, the listing contains a link to a fact sheet and the summary basis of decision for approval, which I've also found helpful for some projects.

Medical Writing Course at Concordia

Concordia University in Montreal is once again offering a medical writing course this winter. The course is online and starts the week of January 11th and runs for ten weeks. You have until Monday December 7th to fax or mail in your registration (Maddeningly, registration via the Internet is not yet available.), after which you'll have to drop it off in person downtown. The course only runs if there are enough people registered by the end of next week. I should be teaching it, but Concordia does not confirm with me until later this month. (The joys of being sessional!)

CEJN 132N Medical Writing: Promotional and Continuing Health Education
In this on-line course, students will learn how to access, evaluate and use information on medical topics in order to start writing for the pharmaceutical industry. Topics covered include pharmaceutical advertising and copywriting, medical education, patient education, writing for the web, multimedia and newsletters. (Note: Medical Writing I CEJN 130 is NOT a prerequisite for this course. (Cost: $255 CDN)

Registration form and instructions are here.
Complete course calendar is here.

Any questions? Leave me a comment or drop me an email.

::EDIT:: Since this is an online course, there are isn't a fixed class time. I usually do a a few online chats for Q&A through the system used for the online course. These will probably alternate between Tuesday or Thursday evenings. The transcript of the Q&A is available online if you miss the Q&A. I also keep weekly online 'office hours' via skype.

Five Golden Rules of PowerPoint

I think most of us have heard the expression "death by PowerPoint," yet despite our awareness of how excruciatingly painful a bad PowerPoint presentation can be, many of us still make them. Whether it's CME presentations, rep training programs, or marketing strategy pitches, we've all seen the eye-glazers.

A lot has been written on how to create a good PowerPoint presentation. Here are my top five things to keep in mind:

1. Make sure that your presentation has a point and a structure, and that each slide supports both.
2. Avoid clutter. Neither the presentation nor the slide should be cluttered. (Unless, of course, the clutter is a prop for the point.) Use only a few fonts, colours and layouts.
3. Allow only one key message per slide. The message should be clear and any text or imagery on the slide should support it.
4. Use the slide to augment and reinforce what you're saying, not to reiterate it. Don't duplicate what you're saying on the slide. People read faster than you talk.
5. Create handouts from the notes section, not the slides. This helps keep your slides crisp and focused. Besides, you can actually put more information in the notes sections than you ever could on the slide itself.

Do you have a golden PowerPoint rule, or set of rules? Share them with us. Leave a comment or drop me a note.