V37 N2 / 2022 

©2022 American Medical Writers Association. All rights reserved.  
ISSN 2163-5315

AMWAJournal.org     3

medicine, holding ourselves to high ethical standards, being 

mindful of potential personal biases while relentlessly  

striving toward objectivity, and ensuring our written contri-

butions are always clear, precise, and complete. This applies 

whether our audience is a medical researcher or practitioner, 

student, regulatory body, patient, or the public at large.

 In recognition of the growing importance of our role as 

medical communicators in conveying factual scientific  

information to our varied audiences, the theme for the 

summer 2022 issue of AMWA Journal is Communicating 

Science. In this issue, we tackle several topics relevant to our 

role in communicating science to our audiences, including

• the value of generating plain language summaries of 

scientific publications to help patients and other non-

specialists to understand the potential implications of 

clinical and medical research,

• the making of good lay summary practice guidance to 

help the public understand the results of clinical trials, 

and

• a proposed systematic approach to writing a scientific 

manuscript to increase the likelihood it will be used to 

further advance biomedical knowledge.

 We are hopeful you will find the information in this issue 

helpful to you in your ongoing role in communicating science.

Reference
1. Bornmann L, Haunschild R, Mutz R. Growth rates of modern 

science: a latent piecewise growth curve approach to model 
publication numbers from established and new literature 
databases. Humanit Soc Sci Commun. 2021;8(224):1-15. 
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00903-w

Communicating Science
Michael G. Baker, PhD, Editor-in-Chief and 
Thomas M. Schindler, PhD, Guest Editor

These are good times to be a medical communicator! 

Science keeps growing and so does the number of scientific 

publications. In the life sciences, the number of publica-

tions increases over 5% every year and the total number of 

publications doubles every 14 years.1 This reflects the grow-

ing number of scientific articles intended for fellow scien-

tists and peers. With the increasing involvement of medical 

writers in the preparation of manuscripts, this growth pro-

vides a multitude of opportunities for professional medical 

communicators. Thus, medical writers are part of a larger 

voice of researchers, medical practitioners, educators,  

and journalists who are conveying advancements clearly 

and objectively.

 The audience many medical writers may primarily serve 

is the scientific/medical community. However, there is a 

growing demand of society at large and of patients in par-

ticular that the science they support with their taxes and 

with their out-of-pocket expenses is explained to them. 

They want to know what scientists work on and what rele-

vance their work has. They want to understand why a new 

drug that comes at a higher price is apparently better than 

established cheaper products. With the growing demand 

of informing nonspecialists and the public comes an addi-

tional responsibility for medical communicators. We need 

to continue finding and defining best practices in commu-

nicating science to nonexpert audiences.

 Although science is growing, there is a concerning per-

centage of society that mistrusts scientific expertise. Bubbles 

have emerged in which misinformation is spread, and opin-

ions are presented as facts, particularly via social media. In 

this situation, medical communicators need to lend them-

selves to the struggle for objective and honest content and 

presentation. Communicating to the public needs to be 

embedded in a framework of sound ethical principles.

 At a practical level, as medical communicators, we must 

continue to do our part by valuing the scientific method 

as the path toward advancements in our understanding of 

Michael G Baker, PhD
Editor-in-Chief

Thomas M. Schindler, PhD 
Guest Editor

FROM THE EDITOR & GUEST EDITOR

http://www.amwajournal.org
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00903-w