Layperson summaries of clinical trial results: Useful resources in the vacuum of regulatory guidance - Volume 24, Issue

To meet the requirements of the clinical trial regulation, preparation for the publication of lay summaries on the European database should be undertaken as soon as possible. However, as of July 2015 (at the time of writing this article), no…

Changing methods to assess targeted therapies in oncology - Volume 27, Issue

New methods have been developed to evaluate targeted therapies, since the classic sequence – phase I, toxicity; phase II, efficacy; phase III, comparison with standard treat ment – is no longer effective for evaluating these new treatments. In…

Establishing a patient publication steering committee: A case study with insights for medical writers - Volume 29, Issue

Development of a patient publication steering committee (PPSC) is an innovation in industry publication practices. In this brief article, we summarise how UCB Pharma, a global biopharmaceutical company, plans to partner with patients to establish a…

Lingua Franca and Beyond - Volume 24, Issue

Knowing that the main theme of this issue of Medical Writing is writing for the lay audience, I was thinking hard about what would be the most relevant topic to discuss in the Lingua Franca and Beyond section. My thoughts went to a topic that…

Medical Devices - Volume 28, Issue

Medical devices should certainly be included on any list of trends in medical writing. That impression was only reinforced by the strong interest in device writing evident at this year’s EMWA spring conference. The three medical device workshops on…

Out on Our Own - Volume 28, Issue

It is a pleasure for me to share an article in this issue from our previous Out on Our Own (OOOO) section editor, Satyen Shenoy. For those that don’t know him, where have you been? Satyen, as he will describe, has been on the EMWA scene for many…

One size doesn’t fit all: Tailored medical writing mentoring and training - Volume 30, Issue

While there is ultimately no “secret sauce” to mentoring, in this article I outline my nonnegotiables, which, although not rocket science, often take the mentor’s concerted effort to implement. Firstly, everyone is different. While hardly…

Modern mentorship: Developing medical writing mentor-mentee relationships in the virtual world - Volume 30, Issue

Mentorship is often viewed as a traditional personal relationship model, where the mentor meets face-to-face with a mentee within the same organisation or group.  However, I have been mentoring medical writers success fully for many years using…

Good Writing Practice - Volume 30, Issue

Grammatical misagreement in tense

I – Present, present perfect

Introduction

Each of the sections of a journal article contains anticipated conceptual components, which can be expressed by a specific verb tense for the perspective of time and the d…

Interview: A career journey in sustainability: Three questions for Alex Schuman, Head of Corporate Sustainability and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Schrödinger - Volume 31, Issue

Many pharmaceutical and medical device companies are making huge environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments, such as striving to achieve carbon neutrality, and aiming to reach diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals. In order to…