A day in the life of a Principal Medical Writer
Claire Foskett - Principal Medical Writer March 25, 2021
From Associate Medical Writer to Principal Medical Writer (PMW), my primary role has always been, and still is, to create content. And that’s great for me as it’s what led me to a career in medical writing in the first place – a love of science, a love of language, and a passion for communicating. The rest of the writing team here is the same – we all love an in-depth scientific problem-solving session! Working in such a stimulating environment with like-minded people is really invigorating.
But, while a typical day of course involves researching, writing and referencing, it also involves thinking beyond the project to the bigger picture. For every project I take on, I have to think about strategy, synergies with other projects, and opportunities for business development. How does this project fit into the client’s overall strategy? Why are we doing this project now? Does this project complement/affect another project that we’re already working on? What other projects could we suggest to further support the client’s strategy? And I mean ‘we’. There are no silos here.
There’s a really wide range of skills and experience within the broader team – Content, Client Services, Creative, Digital – so everyone is encouraged to contribute their own ideas for new projects. And we work on such a broad range of therapy areas and types of projects here that there’s always some expertise that you can call on.
This team mentality is particularly important when it comes to thinking about project delivery. From developing a budget and thinking about how to allocate the tasks so that the right people are doing the right job at each stage, through to building strong partnerships with the client so they give us what we need to make the whole process run smoothly.
Part of working at optimal efficiency is making sure people have the skills and knowledge that they need – we’ve got a great team here and everyone is keen to learn and to help each other out! So some of my time is allocated to identifying training needs, developing training materials, and running training sessions. This could be training on writing, the pharma industry itself, or a specific therapy area. Examples might be ‘how to write a paper’, ‘what is an orphan drug?’, or a journal club on the primary paper from a key trial. Knowledge sharing is a key part of being a PMW, so I make sure I’m on top of industry and therapy area news, and let the team know when something important happens!
And, whether I like it or not, I still can’t escape reading emails and filling in my timesheets!
If you think you have what it takes to be part of our medical content team, take a look at our current opportunities or just drop our Talent Acquisition Partner, Amy Bremner an email at Amy.Bremner@asandk.com
Learn more about the perks and benefits of working at Remedica part of the AS&K Group here.
