Medical Writing

[RuralER/Ortho]

Has anyone done any (paid) medical writing on a PRN/part time basis? I have looked into this, but a lot of the sites and info that you get seem a little shady. There are plenty of full time positions offered with pharmaceutical type companies, but I'm not looking for full time work. Any tips or suggestions?

 

I tried to do a search of the forum, but I didn't find anything. If anyone remembers a threat on this already, let me know.

 

Thanks!

[winterallsummer]

Not familiar with this but would also be interested to hear from someone who has done this.

[charlottew]

I worked in editorial (science, but biomedical too) in a past life. It can be a bit difficult to break into this area, and in general it does not pay well. Unless you go work for an ad agency or a place that prepares CME materials.

 

In order to get a paying gig, you need to generate published writing samples. This means working for free, at the outset. There are plenty of outlets that will publish content for which they did not have to pay.

 

So I guess the answer to your question is, without published writing samples, there are no paid part-time gigs. That I know of.

 

You can PM me, if you want.

[Febrifuge]

Question: what does "published" writing samples mean, exactly? Back in the day I used to have a blog, and a few posts gained a little traction, got some good comments, etc. If someone, say, established a Facebook page (or group) and showed they could write on a schedule/ to deadlines, and produce good-quality original work over time, would that impress anyone? Building a following and doing engagement with an audience presumably might help as well.

 

I'm thinking about what KevinMD grew into, for example. Could something like that be done on purpose?

[charlottew]

Sure, can you tell I'm old-school? WAY back in the day, 'published' meant that you went through an editor, who went through a publisher, to make your content available to the public.

 

Now that Anyone can publish Anything Anytime, it's a bit different. 

 

A new avenue of 'getting paid for it', is to build up a following on-line and sell ads based on page views. If you have a gazillion page views, you can make some income. This might generally work better for broadly popular topics (eg. make-up, fashion, recipes). Probably not biomedical/clinical stuff.

 

One idea is to write some pieces for sites that are already popular. That is, see if KevinMD, GomerBlog, whatever your favorite site is, will publish your material (this will probably be unpaid or poorly paid, at first). Once you have something of a resume, you can pitch pieces to more conventional/established type publications, for paid gigs. Having some sort of personal contact also helps, immensely.

 

A lot of it depends on what type of writing you want to do, how much of your time you want to spend on it, and whether or not you want to be paid for it.

 

More commercial writing (eg. CME/pharma material) pays better than the other stuff.

[EMEDPA]

I have written a bunch of articles over the years which have been published. a few paid me a whopping $50 dollar honorarium!

[jmj11]

I agree with EMEDPA regarding journals. I use to write on a regular basis for the PA journals and it paid about 50 cents an hour for the work. The best way to make money (if you are unethical) is to write a book about "All the Lies Your Doctor Tells You and How to Get Slim, Cancer Free and Beautiful by Using a Secret Root from Some Exotic Plant from Malta (thinking of Malta as I'm in route to there now).

 

Seriously, it is hard to break into from what I know. I have at least two patients who write for different journals (full time) and they complain how little they are paid and how competitive it is to make it. One of them, so she tells me, writes much of the instructional materials for Microsoft products.

 

If you figure out a way to do it for enough money, let us know. Unless you are the editor of a PA or other medial journal, I doubt if writing there would meet your needs.

[charlottew]

I never said it was a practical way to make a living, lol. As more and more readers expect to get their content for free, expect writers to be paid less and less.

 

If it is for an academic publication/journal, you will be able to put the publication on your resume, most journals will not pay for content as you get an academic 'credential'.

 

I worked as a paid (and well paid) editor for a biomedical research journal(s). I didn't do much writing. It was a full-time salary, but a stressful job. I now work critical care, and find it to be less stressful. Ironically. (or maybe I am just built weird) 

 

edit: also I had a qualifying credential, PhD in biology. So that's another consideration.