Lay summaries and writing for patients: Where are we now and where are we going? - Volume 28, Issue

We examine the trend for increasing and more transparent patient information and ask how close we have come in the last few years to producing useful and meaningful information for patients. We also outline the challenges faced by medical writers…

The Webscout - Volume 24, Issue

Are we aware how different from each other presentations for lay audiences and those for professional experts are, even if they cover the same subject? Check these publications on pirfenidone, a drug against idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Medical Journalism - Volume 21, Issue

The majority of medical writers (either in the pharmaceutical industry, CROs, or as freelancers) provide documents for regulatory authorities. A smaller proportion works in the medical and health communication field writing texts for either…

Medical journalism in a new era - Volume 30, Issue

We are living at a time when the general public is increasingly interested in scientific and medical advances. Medical journalism is therefore becoming more important to medical writers, although it is a subject that few of us are familiar with. To…

Landscaping the terminology of accessible language document types - Volume 31, Issue

There are three main types of accessible language documents that medical writers and medical publications professionals may work on. These are regulatory lay summaries, publication-associated plain language summaries (PLS), and standalone plain…

Gained in Translation - Volume 24, Issue

Editorial Welcome to the Translation Section editorial! What we call ‘lay-friendliness’ is a key characteristic of Patient Information Sheets (PIS), which are tightly regulated on a European level to guarantee a comprehensible document that…

Catching the wave of lifestyle medicine - Volume 28, Issue

Non-communicable diseases (degenerative chronic diseases) are wreaking havoc on human health, causing 70% of deaths world - wide, but lifestyle medicine is ready to tackle them by helping people change the habits behind them. A new medical…

President's Message - Volume 24, Issue

Dear EMWA Members, As we came together in the historic city of The Hague in November 2015 for another successful and enjoyable conference, we were particularly delighted to welcome our Benelux members who turned out in force. The usual EMWA…

Passing the torch - Volume 21, Issue

This issue is the first where I will be serving as Editor-in-Chief of Medical Writing (MEW). Elise Langdon-Neuner, Editor-in-Chief since 2004, will be stepping down. This is yet another step in the evolution of the journal.

For those of you unfamili…

Pleasing the reader by pleasing the eye—Part 1 The role of format and design in readability - Volume 21, Issue

Whoever writes wants to be read. Yet, even if we succeed in creating an informative, logically structured, and adequately worded text tailored to our target audience, i.e., text we consider to have an adequate level of readability, our documents may…