Tuesday, September 29, 2009

FREE Webinar: CME Opportunities for Medical Writers

As a medical writer, you may be feeling the pinch of the economic downturn – fewer clients, fewer writing opportunities, and lower compensation. But wisdom always says that downturns are a great time to prepare yourself for the next wave, and to broaden your skills so that you can ride more comfortably in any economic climate.

There’s been a temporary downturn in the Continuing Medical Education (CME) industry as well. Medical device and pharmaceutical companies, long-time financial supporters of CME education, have reduced funding because of claims of excess influence and bias over CME content. Congress, the media, and the public are scrutinizing the CME industry, demanding bias-free content that improves physician competency and patient outcomes.

The upturn is coming. How? Knowledgeable medical writers are changing the ways in which CME is designed, created, implemented, and evaluated. New funding sources are being developed, and CME is now being more stringently required in medical recertification and licensing of physicians, particularly in specialties – all to improve patient care.

These changes create a HUGE OPPORTUNITY FOR WRITERS who want to break into lucrative CME medical writing, because everyone in the industry has to learn how to create CME that meets these new criteria.

Here’s the opportunity:

• CME medical writing can be very lucrative because it is specialized.
• There is a shortage of medical writers trained in CME, especially in the new rules.
• The playing field is as level as it will ever be for new writers coming into the world of CME.
• YOU can learn how to create valuable CME content for physician education.
• NOW is the time to learn CME Training for Medical Writers and broaden your skill set for the future.


If you want to learn more about this great opportunity, you must attend this FREE Webinar on October 15th, 2009. The webinar will cover:

1. The changes and updated criteria for CME, as outlined by ACCME (the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education) and why YOU need to know them
2. What CME Providers are looking for in sourcing CME writers
3. Overviews of critical CME content areas
a. How to prove there is a need for physician learning
b. Creating educational goals and objectives that meet your identified needs
c. Creating CME content that is valid, current, and unbiased (from commercial interests)
d. Techniques that increase learning and improved physician performance in the clinical setting
e. How to construct post-learning evaluation tools that measure the effectiveness of your content
4. A brief presentation on how YOU can enroll in “CME Training for Medical Writers”, participate in a CME Internship Program, and how this can lead to your first paid CME job.

You get all this, PLUS, for attending this webinar, THREE FREE BONUSES to get you started in CME:

  1. The 7 steps of a needs assessment – proving that physician education is needed
  2. The 18 most frequently used sources to research the need for CME
  3. A one-of-a-kind Chart that connects adult learning styles with the different formats of CME, so that your CME can be learned by physicians most effectively


REGISTER TODAY

The details of your FREE Webinar:

Who: Hosted by Diego Pineda of www.medicalwritingtraining.com, and
Presented by Johanna Lackner Marx, MSW, MPH of www.inquill.com

What: FREE Webinar: “CME Opportunities for Medical Writers”

When: Thursday, October 15, 2009, 5:00pm PST, 7:00pm CST, 8:00pm EST

Where: Click to Register for your FREE Webinar here

Medical Tribune – Medical Writer Job in Singapore

Medical Tribune (www.medicaltribune.com) is a medical newspaper distributed to general practitioners, specialists and medical professionals throughout the Asia Pacific region. They are currently recruiting medical writers to work as journalists for their publication. This would be a full-time positions based in Singapore.

Qualifications / Skills

  • Degree in Journalism, Mass Communications or a medical/science field
  • Possess at least two years’ working experience, preferably at a publication or in an editorial capacity
  • Excellent news sense
  • Excellent writing, interviewing, proofreading, editing skills
  • Able to deliver high quality work under pressure of multiple editorial project deadlines
  • Time management and deadline-oriented: multi-tasking skills essential
  • Proactive and able to work independently

Responsibilities

  • Writing medical news reports for a professional audience
  • Interviewing key opinion leaders in the healthcare field
  • Work with managing editor to develop news angles for articles and develop contacts in medical industry
  • Proofreading and editing medical news and scientific reports
  • Coverage of local and overseas medical congresses, meetings and press conferences
  • Liaison with the pharmaceutical industry
  • Work with managing editor on development of pagination plan
  • Liaison with in-house design and production team on development of design, layout of copy and print production
  • Background research in topic area as required
  • Developing advertorial materials as required
  • Editorial support for partner journals, as required

Contact:

Paul Pimentel

Deputy Managing Editor

Medical Tribune

Medical Progress

Journal of Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology

Email: paul.pimentel@asia.cmpmedica.com

Phone: +65 6223 3788

Fax: +65 6221 4788

www.medicaltribune.com

www.medicalprogress.com

CMPMedica Asia Pte Ltd

No. 3 Lim Teck Kim Road #10-01

Singapore Technologies Building

Singapore 088934

Friday, September 18, 2009

More About Ghostwriting in Medical Journals

The controversy around marketing manuscripts disguised as scientific papers has created quite a reaction in the medical writing community. I'm glad to see that journal editors are taking steps to stop this practice.

This is what is happening, as told in this NYT article:

"... in light of recently released evidence that some drug makers have gone to great lengths to turn scientific articles into marketing vehicles for their products, some influential medical editors are cracking down on industry-financed ghostwriting. And they are getting help from some members of Congress.

"These editors are demanding that journals impose tougher disclosure policies for academic authors and that the journals enforce their own rules by actively investigating the provenance of manuscripts and by punishing authors who play down extensive contributions by ghostwriters."

These policies include retraction of the papers, and that “authors found to have not declared such interest should be banned from any subsequent publication in the journal and their misconduct reported to their institutions.”

That's all good and clear and hopefully they will actually implement these policies. But what about the medical writers that willingly ghostwrite articles at the request of pharmaceutical companies--sometimes slanting data? Should they be "punished" also? If so, how can we do that? And who would do it? AMWA? Congress?

Should ghostwriting be regulated in medical writing? What do you think?