The Journey of a New Junior Medical Writer – Through the Eyes of Two Newbies
By Asmin Andries & Eva Mertens
When you are considering a professional career as a junior medical writer, you will probably have no hands-on experience in medical writing. However, anyone with a passion for both medical sciences and writing should take the chance to develop themself as a medical writer! At Emtex, junior medical writers are welcomed in an environment where they are able to learn on the job, with thorough training and mentoring. This entire process of guidance ensures that the junior medical writers can grow in their job and can start working more and more independently on future projects.
Training
During the first weeks at Emtex, junior medical writers get to read SOPs, work instructions, and other important documents such as good clinical practice or regulation on clinical trials. In-house training materials and sponsor trainings are provided as well. Together with these trainings, the junior medical writers get assigned several exercises, so they can translate abstract theory into practice.
“It gave me ease of mind during the first week to know what I was up to, because of the detailed first week planning. The method of combining theory on completely new matter with practical exercises made me understand the important messages more quickly and gave me a lucid view on the ‘clinical world’ and all its facets. I could learn from my mistakes thanks to clear feedback and additional explanations from my co-workers on the exercises.”
“It is very reassuring to me, a starting junior medical writer, that I am allowed to discover the world of medical writing at a steady, yet forwarding pace. After the exercises, real projects were assigned and thanks to previous trainings, the availability of a broad range of training material, and above all the help from colleagues, I felt ready to start working on them.”
Mentoring
When the first medical writing projects are assigned to the junior medical writers at Emtex, they are always supported by a more experienced colleague (‘their mentor’). Besides close follow-up and regular checks, the mentor will perform a full review (‘peer review’) before sending each draft to the client. Based on this peer review, the junior medical writers make some final adjustments before their documents are actually sent out for review.
“At the start of my first project, my mentor showed me which documents were needed to start on the first draft and where I could find these documents. This was followed by a thorough explanation about these different document types and about how the mentor would approach the assigned project.”
“Then, it was up to me, as junior medical writer, to start writing. During the writing process, my mentor checked the document regularly, which ensured a good follow-up of my work and provided the opportunity to discuss difficulties together.”
Feedback
When each project is completed, an assessment form is filled in, in which the junior medical writers and mentors assess each other. As a result, both parties learn something from the past project, improving their skills for the future.
“This feedback is important! The junior medical writers learn how to improve their writing skills and deal with comments on their written texts and the mentors learn how to give clear feedback to the junior medical writers.”
Team Spirit
Since the junior medical writers work so closely together with their mentors throughout an entire project, this automatically creates a close bond. It not only improves the quality of the written document, but also improves the team spirit. Thanks to the in‑depth training junior medical writers receive at Emtex, and the mentoring by competent colleagues, they are constantly growing in this fascinating field and developing a skill set to be good, valuable medical writers.
“The better the colleagues can work together and the stronger the bond between them, the better the quality of our written documents.”