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Subject:Re: Why so few medical techwriters From:Peter Neilson <neilson -at- alltel -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sat, 21 Aug 2004 20:53:39 -0400
Correct. The word is "qualified." I've seen some FT medical
tech-writing jobs open up nearby, but they generally are looking for
advanced degrees in medicine or biochemistry, or tons of
pharmaceutical experience. It seems that my ability to read the Merck
Vet Manual isn't enough, because my writing's only been about computer
stuff.
--Peter Neilson in North Carolina, up to his earballs in horses
On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 17:06:08 -0700, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:
This is not true at all. The need for medical products to be easier
for medical professionals to use does result in more attention paid
to things like usability in design that reduces the size of end user
instructions, but the smaller quantity of documentation required is
the direct result of the enormous effort that goes into the design
of the products. Also, medical products still require vast
quantities of documentation before they can be approved for sale and
use. It is simply that most of that documentation requires
extremely specialized medical or regulatory knowledge, and due to
the enormous potential for liability in the event of error, almost
none of it is farmed out to contractors. So while it may seem to
the contractor that there is less writing, it is more accurate to
say that there is less writing that manufacturers are willing to
trust to to outside contractors. Even at the lowest depths of the
recent downturn, demand for qualified medical writers was quite
strong, but extremely few of the large numbers of writers who lost
their jobs in software and other nonmedical fields were qualified to
fill it.
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