Hello and welcome to a brand spanking new section of Medical Writing. When the Editor of Medical Writing, Phil Leventhal, approached me to create a new section, he asked me to cover ‘medical communications’. But medical communications is a whole grey area (unfortunately more ‘5 shades’ than 50 …) that's often the cause of much consternation. For instance, medical communications agencies argue strongly that manuscript writing falls under their remit, but many medical writing companies focused entirely on the regulatory side count manuscript writing as one of their core competencies.

So how do we sort it out? Well … I don't think we do. I don't think it matters who writes a document as long as it's written well and is fit for purpose. So, I'd like this section to be as inclusive as possible, and I'm happy to discuss any and all types of writing and documents that perhaps don't ‘fit’ in the other sections. Areas that we will definitely cover in this section include:

But if you have other topics that you would like to discuss, I'm more than happy to include them (within reason!). Please let me know if you have something you'd like to share. It doesn't have to be a long article, a couple of paragraphs is fine, or you could pose a question to the section Agony Aunt – maybe about a difficult situation or client or document – we often learn more from things going badly than we do from those that go well. You can even just let me know if there is an area you know nothing about but would like to know more, and I'll do my best to grab an expert for their ‘top tips’. Any and all ideas will be very gratefully received.

This edition's article, by Sarah Richardson, offers an insight into how to write a symposium review … without even being there!

I hope that you enjoy the section, and I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments.

Lisa Chamberlain James

Trilogy Writing & Consulting Ltd

lisa@trilogywriting.com