





































       V39 N3 / 2024 

©2024 American Medical Writers Association. All rights reserved.  
ISSN 2163-5315

AMWAJournal.org     9

THEME ARTICLE

The questions I’m asked about medical writing are often 
“how do I become a medical writer?” or “what is the 
best background?” or “what kind of training is crucial to 
success?” I’d like to humbly suggest that these are the wrong 
questions. I think a better question might be, “how do I 
know I’ll be happy as a medical writer?”

THE WHY
I began my career as a medical writer after almost 10 
years in clinical development where medical writing 
responsibilities overlapped with my other job expectations. 
Conversely, one talented medical writer I know found this 
career following a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship. And 
still another gifted medical writer’s first industry role was as 
a study coordinator at a clinical research site (and she had 
previously worked at two different nuclear power plants). 
There is very little overlap between our academic or career 
backgrounds. The one attribute we share is that we were 
attracted to medical writing by the very real opportunity to 
have an impact in the lives of patients.
 In my experience, medical writers are often driven by 
a strong why, a sense of purpose that creates an ethical 
foundation for our work. When we think about the 
(nonfiction) stories we are telling, we know that, ultimately, 
our words impact other humans. Reflecting on our own 
individual why allows us to have a deeper well of patience 
and empathy for the challenges of our role.
 For me, the rwo greatest gifts of being a medical writer are 
the relationships I have found within the industry (including 
the medical writing community) and the knowledge that my 
work has helped patients, especially those I call family and 
friends. Once you have clarity around your why, there are 
additional characteristics worthy of reflection.

ABILITY TO SOLVE PROBLEMS 
If you don’t enjoy complexity, medical writing may frustrate 
you. For medical writers, there is always something to learn 
and a problem to solve. Medical writers routinely face new 
ideas, new therapeutic areas, new technologies/systems, 
and new team dynamics. Each of these challenges becomes 
a puzzle to unpack, unwind, and understand. A level head 

and tenacity are needed because it is common for a solution 
that worked in one situation to be less useful in a different 
situation, or a tactic that worked for one team to be less 
useful for a different team or even a different encounter with 
the same team. Hence, a critical trait for medical writing 
is a solutionist mindset—the new problem is a puzzle, 
not a roadblock, and solving each problem is intrinsically 
rewarding.

CURIOSITY 
Between the ever-evolving science and the health 
authorities’ efforts to drive innovation, intellectual laziness 
doesn’t work for medical writers. In a 2023 survey of 800 
C-Suite executives conducted by a for-profit education 
platform (EdX),1,2 49% of the responding leaders questioned 
how relevant their workforces’ current skills would be with 
the rise of artificial intelligence. Although an education 
platform would have a good reason to identify and report 
these results, the findings feel reasonable to me. Even very 
experienced medical writers face learning curves. With 
some of my company’s recent clients, the science driving 
their innovations would have been relegated to science 
fiction when I was in college. We have to interrogate ideas 
with curiosity and openness. Job satisfaction as a medical 
writer means enjoying and thriving as a life-long learner.

WILLINGNESS TO LEAD WITHOUT 
ORGANIZATIONAL AUTHORITY
Though, arguably, everything would be better if teams 
did things exactly as advised by their medical writers, it 
is exceptionally rare (maybe nonexistent) for the medical 
writer to carry organizational authority over a team. Not 
surprisingly, according to Randstad’s 2024 Workmonitor 
report,3 management and leadership skills were the highest 
training priority among workers in the United States. This is 
well-aligned with medical writing.
 Our role requires time and timeline management, 
written and oral communication skills, and the ability to 
direct a team of document contributors. Most successful 
medical writers carry a deep sense of responsibility for 
their documents, their teams, and the patients they want 

Robin Whitsell, BA, BPh / Founder and President, Whitsell Innovations, Inc, Chapel Hill, NC

The Call of the Open Road: Is Medical Writing Right for You?

http://www.amwajournal.org


AMWAJournal.org     10The Call of the Open Road: Is Medical Writing Right for You?

to help. Embracing document ownership, coupled with the 
skills of nonprosecutory levels of stalking, allows medical 
writers to extract the relevant contributions from team 
members, navigate team dynamics, and deliver high-quality 
documents. The balancing act of this leadership relies on 
tact, steadfastness, and leaning on communication and 
rapport soft skills.

COMFORT WITH DISCOMFORT
In a 2023 LinkedIn survey4 looking at desirable worker 
skills, the skill with the sharpest rise in demand over the 
study period was adaptability. Although the survey authors 
did not release a list of the specific roles they assessed, 
satisfaction as a medical writer is closely tied to this skill.
 Like many industries, medical writers are impacted 
by technology, including the exploration of artificial 
intelligence—even as our value proposition might be 
questioned. What may be nonobvious is, despite how we 
feel about these changes, medical writers have to be ahead 
of each new advancement. We continually stare down 
learning curves to lead and support our teams as they 
navigate emerging technologies from regulatory information 
management systems to specific document requirements 
and workflows. Commonly, the medical writer is mapping 
out the best way to interact with the newest system deployed 
by our employers, even if that experience is frustrating for us. 
Medical writers might be the change agents of their teams.
 Medical writers also have to exercise mental and 
emotional agility. They have to find ways to work with 
challenging circumstances and personalities. It’s common for 
team members to feel a need to be seen as right and smart. 
Rather than being right, we have to embrace getting the 
document right. This can feel uncomfortable, especially when 
a document we have worked on is being critiqued less on its 
merit and more on how it aligns to the story a team member 
wants to tell or the way that the team member(s) want to tell 
it. Sometimes medical writers have to lead complex and  
difficult conversations and provide feedback to support 
delivering documents that will pass health authority muster. 
In a room full of very smart people, a medical writer has to  
remain unflappable and composed in order to build con-
sensus without ruffling egos or compromising data integrity.

YOUR OPEN ROAD
In the You’re Wrong About podcast,5 sled dog musher 
and author Blair Braverman corrected a misconception 
about the lead dog of a sled dog team and detailed how it 
parallels with leadership in the human world. She described 
how, contrary to the societal idea of the alpha dog, the 
dog leading a team was not necessarily stronger, more 

vicious, or more dominant. Dogs, as pack animals, are more 
comfortable chasing another dog. Finding a dog who sees 
an open trail and experiences excitement is rare.

They could be shy, and they could be quiet… 
They're good at finding the trail, breaking the 
trail in deep snow, navigating, setting a pace, 
listening to cues from the musher, pushing 
through storms, (and they) like using their 
own instincts. And it's energizing for them in 
a way that other dogs on the team might find 
it exhausting to be making those decisions.5

 Her explanation felt very much like being a medical 
writer. If you are passionate about your potential to help 
people, enjoy solving problems, embrace curiosity and 
the opportunity to continuously learn, are undeterred 
by leading without organizational authority, and 
facing challenges energizes rather than exhausts you, 
congratulations! You have found a career that can deliver 
these adventures. Medical writing is for you.

Acknowledgments
The author thanks Karen Campbell, MS, for her review and 

critique, and WI employees for brainstorming one word (only) 

that describe a medical writer.

Author declaration and disclosures: The author notes no  
commercial associations that may pose a conflict of interest in 
relation to this article.

Author contact: robin.whitsell@whitsellinnovations.com

References
1.   McKendrick J. Half of all skills will be outdated within two 

years, study suggests. Forbes. Updated October 16, 2023. 
Accessed May 31, 2024. https://www.forbes.com/sites/
joemckendrick/2023/10/14/half-of-all-skills-will-be-outdated-
within-two-years-study-suggests/

2.   edX survey finds nearly half (49%) of CEOs believe most or all of 
their role should be automated or replaced by AI. edX. Published 
September 19, 2023. Accessed May 31, 2024. https://press.edx.
org/edx-survey-finds-nearly-half-49-of-ceos-believe-most-or-all-
of-their-role-should-be-automated-or-replaced-by-ai

3.   Hess AJ. The 5 skills workers value the most in 2024, according 
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4.   Brodnitz D. The most in-demand skills for 2024. LinkedIn. 
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most-in-demand-hard-and-soft-skills

5.   Marshall S. Balto with Blair Braverman. You’re Wrong About. 
March 4, 2024. Accessed May 31, 2024. https://yourewrongabout.
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http://www.amwajournal.org
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