Related Posts
Rising Star
More Posts
Do you believe nurses are underpaid?
I will be in SF next week to present my book “Agencies & Brands in the Experience Economy..” I’d love to connect with people from the area.
RSVP and details here
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-presentation-agencies-brands-in-the-experience-economy-management-organization-tickets-57295348931?ref=eios
Additional Posts in Pharma and Health Advertising
Copywriters write general copy across many fields & accounts.
Medical writers specialize in the science, can write in medical terms targeting folks in medical fields and can appropriately source and annotate their claims for med/legal review.
This ^.
Frequently medical writers have medical or healthcare specific degrees or subject matter knowledge, like oncology or vaccines, etc. I knew one who was a pharmacist in a past life, one with a nursing degree etc
Medical writers usually have an advanced degree, like an MD, pharmD, or PhD. I’ve known some who just had an undergrad science degree with a ton of science writing experience. Medical writers usually have a higher and more in depth level of scientific knowledge than copywriters. Copywriters also tend to have more advertising skills, like concepting too.
Mentor
Medical writers are not creative
https://www.google.com/search?q=difference%20between%20medical%20writer%20and%20copywriter
Cute. But I’m actually not seeing a conclusive answer. Which leads me to believe it may depend on how an agency or even brand team is structured.
Medical writers make more.
Their work is also more boring.
Usually medical writers are content creators for med ed (product monographs, speaker slide decks, other tactics that will make you contemplate suicide) while copywriters are content creators for promotional materials. At least that's how I've seen it split at agencies where I've worked.
Medical writers write clinical study reports. It has no promotional writing.
I’ve never seen that before either. Previously, I was a medical writer in house at a pharma company and we never touched anything even remotely similar to advertising.
Copywriters do promo. Medical writers do all the rest which generally breaks down into regulatory (protocols, CSRs, etc) and med comms which can include things like journal articles, CME, and anything else non-promo.