V38 N1 / 2023 

©2023 American Medical Writers Association. All rights reserved.  
ISSN 2163-5315

AMWAJournal.org     61

As I write this, it’s January. There’s snow on the ground, and 

now that I’ve gotten through the end-of-the-year deadlines 

and the holidays, I’ve had a chance to look back at our con-

ference in Denver. I am so pleased that we were able to have 

our annual conference in person. I enjoyed talking with 

people face to face and attending the wonderful sessions 

that the 2022 Annual Conference Program Committee put 

together. (Note that for the first time this year we recorded 

select sessions, which are available for purchase through the 

end of March.) I got to meet up with fellow members of the 

Rocky Mountain Chapter for our chapter dinner, including 

several people I had seen only on Zoom. Best of all, I saw a 

lot of people, from newbies to old hands, enjoying their time 

at the conference.

 In addition, our Medical Writing Executives Advisory 

Council had a successful Executives Forum at the annual 

conference. The Executives Forum offers programming to 

senior level pharma/biotech professionals whose responsi-

bilities include recruiting, training, and managing medical 

communicators. A summary of what happened at this year’s 

forum will be in the June issue of the AMWA Journal.

 A new year has started, and we have a lot to look  

forward to.

 Our Diversity & Inclusion Assessment Task Force is ana-

lyzing data collected from the survey that was sent out last 

summer to AMWA members. The task force will report back 

to the AMWA Board of Directors to advise on next steps. I 

am eager to discover how we can improve serving our mem-

bers and make sure members with a variety of backgrounds 

and areas of expertise are heard.

 One of our other great initiatives, the Value of Medical 

Writing Working Group, continues to make great strides 

in defining and quantifying the value of medical writing. 

Last year, the Working Group published a series of 3 arti-

cles in the AMWA Journal, and, at the annual conference in 

Denver, they presented 2 posters, one on empowering med-

ical writers and the other on measuring the success of med-

ical writing. The Working Group plans to continue to create 

and publish tools, resources, and articles to help medical 

communicators develop leadership and other important 

interpersonal skills to empower medical communicators. 

Look for Working Group updates in the AMWA Journal and 

at future AMWA conferences.

 For those of you who like to stay connected throughout 

the year by attending AMWA’s webinars, we are develop-

ing a great webinar schedule for this year. Webinars will be 

announced in the biweekly AMWA updates, so be on the 

lookout for those.

 Finally, we’re already gearing up for our 2023 Medical 

Writing & Communication Conference in Baltimore. We 

have a great location on the waterfront, and I have crab 

cakes and a Chesapeake Bay cruise on my personal to-do 

list. Our 2023 Annual Conference Program Chair, Michele 

Sequeira, writes more about this year’s conference in this 

issue of the AMWA Journal. I hope you will be able to join 

me in Baltimore for what I am sure will be an excellent mix 

of educational content and networking.

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Looking Forward

AMWA NEWS

Elise Eller, PhD / 2022–2023 AMWA President

http://www.amwajournal.org