Seminar

on
Medical writing

Dr. Ashwin.V.P
PG (NATUROPATHY CLINICAL)
SDMCNYS,Ujire.
Contents
What is Medical Writing
Types of Medical Writing
Required Skills for Medical Writing
Tips for Writing Career
The Basic Structure of Article
The scope of medical writing
Qualities of effective medical writing
Guidance on writing research papers
What is Medical Writing?
“Medical writing is the activity of writing scientific
documentation by someone who is a specialized writer
(a medical writer) and is generally not one of the
scientists or doctors whose research it was.”
Examples of Medical Writing
Journal articles
Original research
Review articles
Editorials, case reports, etc.
Abstracts
Submission to medical meetings(Souveneir)
Posters
Presentation at medical meetings
Examples of Medical Writing
Slide presentations
Original research
Symposia
Roundtables
Advisory boards
Medical education materials
Training materials
Prescribing information
Examples of Medical Writing
Regulatory documents
 Clinical Trial Reports (CTR)
 New Drug Applications (NDA)
 Investigational New Drug Application (IND)
Marketing materials
 Advertisements
 Public relations materials
 Internet documents
 Patient education
Types of Medical Writing
Editorial
Original Article
Review Articles
Short Papers
Case Reports
Personal Views
Required Skills for Medical Writing
Attention to detail
Excellent writing skills
Interpersonal skills
Organizational skills
Scientific skills
The scope of medical writing
Internal reports:
is a business practice that involve collecting information for internal use.

Regulatory reports:
is the submission of raw or summary data needed by regulation to evaluate a banks
and its over all health.

Conference presentations
 abstract
 oral presentation
 poster

Journal articles
 original research paper
 review article
 case report
Tips for Writing Career
Build skills
Composition, grammar
Read medical literature
Training
Medical writing certification
Statistics
Networking
Course agenda

Lectures
Good medical writing and controlling the sentence
Study reports for regulatory submissions
Journal peer review and publication
Presenting different types of clinical evidence
Presenting statistical data for publication
Medical communication for promotions
New frontiers in publishing
Tips for using MS Office

Workshops
Presenting at a conference
Writing up a clinical trial for journal publication
The Basic Structure of Article
TITLE
(S)Summary (Structured Abstract)
(I) Introduction (What Question was asked?)
(M)Methods (How was it Studied?)
(R)Results (What was Found?)
(A)Analysis (How data was analysed?)
(D)Discussion (What Do the Findings Mean?)
Acknowledgements
References
Title
Should be specific But comprehensive
Short But sufficiently descriptive
No abbreviations
Should be easy To catalogue
 Title Page
 Title of the article (concise information)
 Name of author(s)
 Highest academic degree(s)
 Affiliation
 Department
 Institution
 Disclaimers if any
 Name and address of author for correspondence about the
manuscript
 Source of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs
 Short running head or foot line of no more than 40 characters
Structured abstract
Introduction
Objective
 Design
 Setting
 Patients and methods
 Results
 Conclusions
 Key words
Abstract and Key Words
 150 words for unstructured abstract
 250 words for structured abstract
 Purpose of the study
 Basic procedures (selection of subjects, observational and
analytical methods)
 Main findings (Data and its significance)
 The principal conclusions
 3-10 Key words
 Assist indexer and cross indexing
 Terms from medical subject heading (MeSH) should be
used
structured abstract
unstructured
Introduction
State purpose of the article
Summarize the rationale for study or observation
Give Strictly pertinent reference
Do not include data or conclusion
Method
Describe selection of the observational, Experimental
subjects including controls
Experimental method (reference for standard
methods)
Statistical methods
Ethics
Results
Logical sequence
Text
Tables
Illustrations
Do not repeat in the text all the data in tables / figures
emphasize, summarizing important observations
Tables - Number tables separate sheets
Figures - Legends
Discussion
Emphasize new and important aspects of the study
and conclusions that follow
Do not repeat the data
Include implications of the funding, their limitations
and implications for future Research
Relate observations with other relevant studies
Recommendations when appropriate may be included
Acknowledgement
Those who do not justify to be Authors should be
Acknowledged
Those who have provided technical help
Financial and material support
Authorship
All person designated as authors should qualify for
authorship
Author should have participated sufficiently in the
work to take public responsibility for the content
Authorship credit should be based on substantial
contribution to:
Conception
Design
Analysis & interpretation of data
Authorship
Drafting, revising it critically, for important
intellectual contents and final approval of the contents
Participating solely in acquisition of funding,
collection of data does not justify authorship
General supervision of research group is not sufficient
for authorship
Order of the author should be a joint decision of the
authors
Qualities of effective medical writing

Start with good science

Communalism - common ownership of scientific
discoveries

Universalism - evaluation using universal, unbiased

criteria

Disinterestedness - scientists should act selflessly

Some Guidelines
Choose an appropriate Journals
Go through the “uniform requirements for Biomedical
publications”
Write simple grammatically correct sentences
Avoid irrelevant details
Show the draft to colleagues
Read final draft carefully
Typographical and grammatical mistakes give bad
impression
Check tables and figures (Captions, size, clarity)
Plan effectively
For original research:
have a clear research question
seek statistical advice
use the right study design
act ethically
keep an open mind and minimise bias
agree who will be principal investigator
agree who will be authors and contributors
agree to publish even negative results
Behave ethically
Publication ethics
avoid misconduct
protect patients’ identities
report clearly:
informed consent
any deviation from usual practice
full burden imposed on participants
total risks posed to participants or others
benefits to participants, patients, society
Clear writing
Keep it simple: use short, familiar words

Avoid jargon and acronyms

Be specific

Be concrete, not abstract

Say what you mean and mean what you say

Education by Degree
Science

English

Journalism

Pharmacy

Medicine

Communication

Other

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Level of Education

2%

30%
Associate's Degree or
33%
Below
Bachelor's

Master's

Advanced

35%
Freelance
1/3 of Medical writers
Work at home
Set your own schedule
Income based upon ability to get work
Discipline
Experience
Ability to market yourself
Guidance on writing research papers
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to
biomedical journals
[Link]

reporting guidelines for research, at the EQUATOR

network resource centre
[Link]
 Medical Statistics
 Statistics is the science of collecting, summarizing,
presenting and interpreting data and of using them to
estimate the magnitude of associations and test
hypotheses.
 It has a central role in medical investigations. Not only
does it provide a way of organizing information on a wider
and more formal basis than relying on the exchange of
anecdotes and personal experience, it takes into account
the intrinsic variation inherent in most biological
processes. For example, not only does blood pressure differ
from person to person, but in the same person it also varies
from day to day and from hour to hour.
Definitions:
 The root of the word stastics comes from the Italian word
statista(statesman) and the German word statistik(political
state).
 Gottfried Achenwall, a professor in Marlborough-1949
 A/c to croxton and Cowden, “stastics is defined as collection,
presentation, analysis and interpretation of numerical data”.
 A/c to Horace Secrist, “Stastics means aggregate of facts
affected to a marked extent by multiplicity of causes,
numerically expressed, estimated according to reasanble
standard of accuracy, collected in systematic manner for a
predeterminated purpose and placed in relation to each other.
Uses of Statistics
Uses:
It presents facts in a definite form.
It facilitates a comparisons.
It simplifies the masses of figures.
It helps in prediction.
Applications of Statistics
Defining normal and not normal in context of various
aspects related to health and illness.
Establishing the accuracy of the diagnostic
procedures.
Planning of experiments and analysis of results.
Observations on the natural history of a disease,
namely its signs, symptoms, course, variations etc.
Assessment of treatment protocol and different
interventions used for care and treatment of the
patients.
Terms Related To Statistics:
Data
Qualitative data
Quantitative data
[Link] data
[Link] data
Parameters
Parametric tests
Nonparametric tests
Scales of management
4 levels of measurement:
[Link] level management.
[Link] level management.
[Link] level management.
[Link] level management.
Classification of Statistics
 2 categories:
[Link] statics
a. Frequency distribution & graphical presentation
b. Measures of central tendency
i. Arithmetic mean
ii. Median
iii. Mode
iv. Geometric mean
v. Harmonic mean
c. Measures of dispersion
vi. Range
vii. Mean deviation
viii. Standard deviation
ix. Quartile deviation
d. Measures of relationship
[Link] statics
Test of Significance
There are several parametric(T-test, Z-test, ANOVA)
and non parametric test(chi-square test, median test,
Mann-Whitney U-test, sign test)
Parametric test
T-test
a. unpaired t-Test
b. paired t-Test
Z-test
ANOVA
Non Parametric test
Chi-square test
Mann-whitney U-test
Sign test
References
Nursing research by Gupta.
Nursing research & Statistics-Suresh K Sharma.
Research methodology by C R Kothari.
THANK YOU