Resources for medical writers
Education and qualifications
University courses: Some universities offer postgraduate courses in health communication.
Master of Health Communication at Sydney University
Graduate Diploma in Health Communication at Sydney University
Master of Science Communication at The University of Western Australia
Another option is to do a blended degree, such as Swinburne University’s Bachelor of Health Science/ Bachelor of Media and Communication.
Short courses: Writers looking to upskill in specific areas can take short courses in topics including editing, consumer health writing, freelance writing, magazine writing and technical writing.
Science journalism – a free online course for budding science writers and journalists, developed by a team of 35 writers and editors.
Copy writing and other writing courses – Australian Writers Centre
Fundamentals of technical writing – University of Western Australia
Courses in journalism, editing and publishing – Australian College
Copyediting course – Capstone Editing
AMWA PDP: AMWA’s PDP program offers specialised medical writing-related training
Useful resources
Readability tools to help ensure your writing is easy to understand:
Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) and User’s Guide: helps you assess how understandable and actionable print and audiovisual patient education materials are
Plain language summary toolkit— Envision Pharma Group has developed a best-practice resource for PLS of peer-reviewed publications and congress abstracts
The EAST framework for behaviour change— four simple ways to apply behavioural insights
Medical writing career resources
From academic to medical writer – a guide to getting started in medical communications
MedCommsNetworking – networking and dialogue amongst professionals working in med comms
Science communication toolkit – practical tools developed by experts to help science communicators, researchers, journalists and policy makers add quality, impact and influence to their science engagement activities
Health Writer Hub – blogs, short online health writing courses and free resources for health writers
Ragan’s Healthcare blog – news in healthcare social media, marketing and communications
Codes and guidelines
Code of Conduct, Medicines Australia
Therapeutic Goods Administration advertising guidelines
Accessing journals
PubMed – archive of medical journal literature with links to the full-text sources
Unpaywall – unpaywall is a legal, open-source database that allows you to access free
scholarly articles
Style and grammar resources
Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage
Scientific Style and Format: the CSE Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Publishers
Australian Manual of Scientific Style
Australian Government Style Manual 2020
Health reporting
Responsible reporting on medicines, tests and treatments – tips
to help journalists accurately and responsibly reflect independent, reliable evidence in their writing and reporting on medicines, medical
tests and treatments.
Guidelines for writing about specific health conditions:
- Cancer Institute NSW has produced guidelines for writing about cancer
- Mindframe’s guidelines for communicating about mental health issues, including suicide and alcohol and other drugs
- A group of independent experts produced these guidelines for journalists reporting on alcohol and other drugs, in an effort to reduce stigma, improve accuracy in reporting, and minimise harm
- Dementia Australia has developed guidelines for talking or writing about dementia and people living with dementia.
- Mindframe and the National Eating Disorders Collaboration created these guidelines for reporting on eating disorders
- People With Disability Australia developed these guidelines for portraying people with disability
- This position statement from Diabetes Australia focuses on improving communications with and about people with diabetes.
Medical writing associations
American Medical Writers Association
European Medical Writers Association
Australian Science Communicators
World Association of Medical Editors
European Association of Science Editors
The Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS)
The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP)
Society for Technical Communication
International Science Writers Association
Canadian Science Writers Association