MJoTA.org

Health communications: presentation, content, audience analysis, style, and editing

1. Course number:                                 

MWI 1

2. Course title:                             

Health communications: presentation, content, audience analysis, style, and editing

3. Dates offered:             

Rolling admission

4. Semester hours of credit:   

Not applicable

5. Course description

One of 3 required courses for students in the Medical Writing Institute Certificate Program.

We define career medical writers: 'Career medical writers are trained life scientists who translate preclinical and clinical data that they have analyzed, and may have created, into prose, tables, and figures, on behalf of a sponsor from private or public sectors.'

This course introduces the basic concepts of medical writing by showing the student how to document results from data analysis and reporting, databases and presentation.

Online workshops (individual, one hour; classes, two hours) are given live by webinar at agreed-on times.

Writing assignments include: a targeted resume, essays summarizing the content found on US government agency websites, a patient education brochure, an abstract from a published paper, and presenting to the class a slide presentation on a selected disease. Students are encouraged to write essays for publication in Medical Journal of Therapeutics Africa.

6. Prerequisites:                          

1. PhD earned in the laboratory, PharmD, US-licensed MD, MPH, MA, MS, graduate nursing credentials, or
   

2. Graduate of undergraduate medical, nursing, pharmacy school, undergraduate degree in sciences or journalism with courses in the sciences.

7. Applicable student population:

Every professional in life sciences needs to know how to present themselves and their data and needs to know how to analyze data and present it to general and professional audiences. Students may be interested in transitioning into careers in medical writing or they may be interested in working as academic scientists, writing medical fiction, managing medical writers, creating for-profit and not-for-profit companies.

8. Objectives:                               

1. write descriptions of NIH and CDC web-site content for professional non-science trained audience

2. search for information in international web-sites

3. search PubMed and Medline and other US government databases including USPTO
   

4. prepare an abstract for a published article referenced in PubMed

5. assemble and present a professional slide presentation

6. critically evaluate data and data sources
   

7. prepare press releases, newspaper articles, medical journal manuscripts, magazine articles, book reports and patient education brochure

8. apply rhetorical technique in document preparation

9. analyze your target audience
   

10. report statistics accurately and understand what they are and what they mean

9. Syllabus

Topic 1: Medical writing

Topic 2: Data

Topic 3: Targeting your audience

Topic 4: Reporting statistics

Topic 5: Presenting data to a live audience, CME, CE.

Topic 6: Laboratory and clinical data presentations

Topic 7: Ethics and medical writing

Topic 8: Writing medical journal abstracts and manuscripts

Topic 9: Style guides

Topic 10: Press releases

Topic 11: Brochures and posters

Topic 12: Health and science conferences

Topic 13: Writing grant proposals

10. Texts:                                                                            

1. AMA Style Guide.

2. Strunk and White “The Elements of Style”

3. Charles Darwin “The Origin of Species”

4. Florence Nightingale “Notes on Nursing”

5. Statistics textbook
   

11. Grading:                                             

Instructor and student continue working on assignments until they are satisfactory and of career medical writer grade

12. Teaching aids:                                  

File sharing software, chat rooms, powerpoint presentations, fast online access

13. Student and Medical Writing Institute resources:     

Skype, email, telephone, microphone and headsets

14. Problem-solving and critical thinking:

Students determine what contract or job they need and work towards getting it

15. Evaluation:                            

Assignments, oral quizzes, agility in finding data from databases and converting these into prose and tables easily understood by target audiences

16. Individualization:                 

Individual consultation with students, by e-mail, phone, Skype, Google hangouts, Facebook

17. Time described:                   

2017-2018

18. Faculty:                                               

Fellows of the Medical Writing Institute

19. Prepared by:                         
SJ Dodgson PhD

20. Date prepared:                                 

July 2017

21. Date Medical Writing Institute members approved: