So your interested in incorporating medical writing into your career. medical writing is not only helpful as a standalone career that can be done from home, but it can also be useful for enhancing your clinical practice.
Here are five reasons why health writing can be good for you…and your clinical:
Earn a second income
Writing can often be done in snippets of time between patients, on the train, waiting for your kids to finish soccer training. Using these snippets of time to create health articles can be a great way to supplement your income. You may not be able to equalise your clinical income – but you can certainly earn a sizable second stream.
Fill career gaps from the comfort of home
When you need to take time off from your ‘real’ job due to illness, having a baby or moving countries, an ability to write and sell your writing can be indispensible for keeping some money flowing in. The best thing is you can do all this from the comfort of your own home – or airport lounge – or anywhere. All you need is internet access – and a knack with words (and the good news this can be learnt).
Keep up to date
Systematically searching for and reading papers and guidelines is a great way to stay up-to-date with the most recent thinking in your area of interest. The opportunity to pause and read without a specific clinical question in mind allows you to build up a more macro view of developments and how they fit into (or challenge) existing knowledge.
Broaden your perspectives
As you become immersed in the literature around a topic you will have opportunities to take off your professional hat and think and write about issues from a consumer, patient, specialist or health system viewpoint. This is an enriching experience that allows you to walk in someone else’s shoes for a while and build your empathy muscles.
Build your influence
It’s one thing to have a practice of loyal patients – but writing to the wider community (via a blog or publication with your byline) can be a great way to help build your profile, your name known and spread public health messaging in an engaging and informative way. This can help you build your practice as well as building your credibility as well as strengthen the capacity of the community to make informed health decision.
If you would like help getting started in a medical writing career book in for my new mentoring service today.
