Wanna Make Money? Be A Medical Writer!
4 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // July 14th, 2007 // 7:23 pm
Want to make $100,000 to $200,000 a year? Try a career as a medical writer. Some such as Susanna Dodgson, a professor of Biomedical Writing at the University of Sciences of Philadelphia, believes medical writers should get full credit for all that ghostwriting takes place.
“The problem is that (ghostwriting) is a no-lose situation” for academics, she tells PharmedOut. “We’d like medical writers to be involved in advertising. We think it would be more honest….We see ourselves as scientists, translating data. Not translating fairy stories.”
Hank
I know some medical writers. Some say they have cut ethical corners to pay the rent. Some don’t. Like many other things, I guess, it depends on who is doing it.
jason
If they cut too many corners it doesn’t get published. That’s why there are peer reviewed journals. People don’t get to put false articles in the NEJM just because they want to, there is a process.
Melody
Jason–
Before you heap too much praise on JAMA or NEJM, you may want to read what some of their former editors and contributors have to say about the erosion of integrity (to a degree) in these journals; they have much unkinder words to say about “peer-reviewed” specialty journals. They felt strongly enough about the issue to testify before Congressional committees, and illustrate that breaching these formerly NEJunassailable forms of healthcare education for doctors has merely added to the healthcare crisis we are now witnessing.
Honest disclosure by authors of financial interests might go a ways toward remedying the situation, allowing doctors/readers to weight the content for themselves. Since the current paradigm in most matters seems to be “I did it–so what”–both the Senators and panel experts (which included a former NEJM editor) agreed mere disclosure could not pre-empt policy changes. A quick link to Kassirer’s opinions are at: http://enews.tufts.edu/stories/080105ACriticalDiagnosis.htm
Dr. Anoop Austin
Madam,
I am an scientist well experience in medical writing with publications in peer reviewed International Journals and Pharmacueitcal product writing. I am in search of a suitable positin in medical writing from India. If you can suggest any referenc eI would be of thankful to you