November has been a busy month. The European Medical Writers' Association (EMWA) virtual conference opened on the 9th November, interactive seminars were held on the 10th November, and online educational workshops kicked off on the 13th November. Its great to see such a wide variety of training for budding and expert medical writers, an aspect I recently highlighted in a podcast, AI Uncovered. Despite (and because of) the latest influx of AI in medical writing, continuing education in our profession is paramount.

Find out more in this month's article.

Medical writer training

The EMWA virtual November conference has been an excellent resource for new and experienced medical writers. We had a fantastic turnout for this virtual event that enables professional development, especially for those who cannot usually attend face-to-face.

The event opened on the 9th November with an excellent discussion from Ivan Oransky of Retraction Watch and covered the latest updates in retraction of publications. On the 10th November we had lively seminars on writing plain language summaries for publications and AI in medical writing. Keep an eye out for upcoming activities in these areas, particularly AI, as the AI Working Group move on to creating a position statement on responsible use of AI in medical writing and preparing for the next face-to-face conference in Valencia, Spain in May 2024.

Next, from Monday the 13th through to Friday the 24th November, we had a wide range of training for medical writers in interactive workshops. Topics were wide ranging, from an introduction to vaccines, editing and proofreading essentials, to what medical writers should know about medical device software and handling advisory board meetings. EMWA put on these workshops during the conferences held twice a year. Don't hesitate to become a member now and benefit from this high quality training and networking opportunity!

Podcasts

Finally, I had a fun time with Tim Martin from Yseop's AI Uncovered podcast, discussing everything from medical writer training and the shortage of skilled medical writers to how our role as medical writers will change over the next 5 years. Personally, I am looking forward to the advances in this field, as I believe medical writing, and I speak about regulatory medical writing in particular here, will become much more enjoyable.

We are just creating our first clinical study report within the Yseop AI tool. It looks very exciting and I am eager to see what we manage to produce for the first draft, of course, for human review before it goes to the study team for review.

Listen to this episode and others on your favourite podcast platform, or directly below.

Training at Azur Health Science

Stay tuned for updates in medical writer training at Azur Health Science. In 2024, we will be launching a new training platform via our website. More details coming soon.