Medical Writers

Abstracts

Talvez a divulgação científica seja um dos passos mais importantes para o avanço tecnológico. É através de diagnósticos detalhados e da organização e divulgação de informações sobre a saúde que a ciência consegue avançar trazendo novas perspectivas terapêuticas e preventivas. Nosso trabalho busca exatamente a divulgação de informações precisas e claras que sirvam de instrumento para os profissionais de saúde. A iniciativa de Departamento de Ortopedia e Traumatologia da Universidade de São Paulo é fornecer esse suporte aos trabalhos científicos através do desenvolvimento de projetos desde o início, passando pela revisão bibliográfica, padronização, metodologia e adequação dos trabalhos às publicações.

Redatores médicos; Metodologia; Pesquisa

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Medical Writers

Maria Luiza Lotumulo Amatuzzi^I; Maria Fazanelli Crestana^II; Marco Martins Amatuzzi^III; Tarcísio Eloy Pessoa de Barros Filho^III

^ILibrarian - Postgraduate student of São Paulo University - Medical School

^IILibrarian - PhD candidate of São Paulo University - Public Health School

^IIIChairman of Orthopedics and Traumatology Institute at the General Hospital of São Paulo University - Medical School

^{Correspondence}

SUMMARY

Maybe the scientific disclosure is one of the most important steps to the technological advance. It's through detailed diagnoses and the organization and disclosure of health information that science advances presenting new therapeutical and preventive perspectives.

Our paper aims the disclosure of accurate and clear information that can be used as important tools by health professionals. The initiative of the Orthopedics and Traumatology Department is to support the scientific papers, and their full development from the project to the ending, going through the bibliographic review, standardization, methodology and fitting the papers into the conditions of each magazine.

Key words: Medical writers, Methodology, Research.

INTRODUCTION

In the scenery of globalization and scientific and technological development, providing modern diagnostic, therapeutical and preventive methods as well as presupposing the necessity of organization and disclosure of health information, the Orthopedics and Traumatology Institute at the General Hospital of São Paulo University– Medical School idealized and settled a project with actions directed by the enlargement of the concept of science based on modern notions of methodology.

A public hospital as Orthopedics and Traumatology Institute at the General Hospital of São Paulo University– Medical School, which is responsible for the education on all levels, caring for people, including the primary and third attendance and worrying about community services, finds it difficult to control and direct its scientific production from research, besides having a project to develop and – after surpassing all phases – getting it published, fulfilling its duty which is the disclosure of the results to the community.

By analyzing the documents for the settlement of this innovative idea in Brazil and those concerning its development, accomplishments and results, the purposes and practices of the Medical Writers Group will also be analyzed, considering the disclosure of this issue among the professionals of the health field.

All University professors recognize that there are professionals with a predominantly care profile and therefore with a large clinical experience because of their hospital ward and clinic activity and an expressive data bank. All this experience will be lost if the professional doesn't have it published in specialized and respectful publications to future generations.

The initiative of the Orthopedics and Traumatology Department is to support the scientific papers, and their full development from the project to the ending, going through the bibliographic review, standardization, methodology and fitting the papers into the conditions of each magazine.

This Group takes into account that each member of the Clinical Board has his own research matter, his own writing and all his education and care attributions, and yet considers his daily activities, duties and the lack of time or profile to write scientific papers.

REPORT

The European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) ⁽¹⁾, founded in 1989, started with a small group of physicians and communicators, with a university degree, industrialists and journalists, with the purpose of providing a forum to promote excellence rules to medical papers in Europe. At first, the formal training was developed by the affiliation in the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA)⁽²⁾ and in 1999 the EMWA settled its own educational committee developing a program to certify its members, who now are over 300 from 26 different countries. They work at home, for pharmaceutical industries, medical communication companies, research institutes and for scientific journalism.

According to AMWA, the success of Medical Writers comes from the following parameters:

1 - Medical knowledge or skillfulness to understand the language,

2 - Ability to write for health professionals and not for bachelors of arts and languages.

3 - Graduation in Sciences, Pharmacy, Medicine, Journalism or the course of Medical Writers.

4 - Training under supervision

An example of the Medical Writers' professional action is the nurse Laura Quigley^(3,4,5) Master in Sciences and Medical Writer, from the Group of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois. Besides keeping a data bank in her work, the nurse produces papers and has them published with the whole group.

Van Trigt et al.⁽⁸⁾ comment how Medical Writers seek ideas from sources to get information about the medical field, comparing them to journalists and emphasizing the importance of these professionals.

Redmond⁽⁷⁾ emphasizes that nurses have to get prepared to write scientific papers in their action group, even easier to make the process of writing of the least experienced writers.

McDonald⁽⁶⁾ analyzes the necessity of developing techniques to train Medical Writers specialized in Psychiatry in Australia and New Zealand.

The Associations of Medical Writers - the American as well as the European - disclose this work market as very profitable and promising, presenting the advantage that one can work at home or anywhere in the world thanks to the Internet.

METHODOLOGY

The services request starts at a department that forwards the protocols to the various production sectors; to the librarian to check the literature about the matter; to the methodology specialist to analyze and classify the paper; to the statistician to verify the estimate of "n" and to validate the possible conclusions facing the material numbers and calculating the probabilities; and at last to the writers, specialists in writing a well-developed protocol, translating the researchers' ideas or verifying them, changing the language to a scientific or more approachable one, in case of didactic papers or information campaigns to the population. As the protocol is filled out and approved by the Scientific Committee of the Orthopedics e Traumatology Institute and by the Analysis Committee of Research Projects, the paper is developed by the authors complying with the several research procedures of the Institution.

Once the paper is finished within the time period settled beforehand, its authors can use the Medical Writers department, to check the quality and final writing. The writers fit the scientific papers into the magazine requests and translate the text into the language of the selected publication.

By analyzing the project, at first social workers are included in this group, committed to produce the material to be studied; if the research involves patients that are called individuals in methodological language, they are selected taking into account the return possibility within the follow-up program described and the individual conditions required by the registers; nurses, active participants of the project, either scientific, didactic or cultural; physicians that weekly contribute to the group, verifying texts or guiding those who want to write them. These physicians are usually ex-mates of the Institution or work in hospital attendance and can work for a few hours for the Medical Writers group, writing or verifying texts. Some are retirees from Hospital das Clínicas, and members of the Medical Writers Brazilian Society – in São Paulo. All of them are guided by a professor, graduated by the Education School of USP, specialized in language and medical terms, and specially hired by the Studies Center "Godoy Moreira", as it is Professor Liberato Di Dio, anatomist and former-professor of USP and of several American universities.

Chart

RESULTS

The results are evaluated and described from the previous activities produced by the group and according to the starting aims of the project. The actions and products, in which the group participated either by developing or by verifying the final writing, including the versions, will be described. Didactic activities and the social work will be shown.

12 finished revised papers were actually adjustments to the magazines standards that they were directed to. The greatest work of Medical Writers concerned book chapters that are being written by the Orthopedics and Traumatology Department. Its role was the equalization of language among the chapters, providing standardization to the studies.

As a request of the Scientific Committee and due to masters and doctors' difficulty in summarizing their theses for publication, the Writers were able to do fifteen of them, fulfilling a AEPIC Academical Education Personal Improvement Coordination request.

Spelling revisions and versions represented 12 items that could only be done by specialists.

In the theses counseling item, with a total number of 18, interviews with specialists were made, always in the presence of the counselor.

All the papers that were originated in the meeting are followed from time to time, according to schedule.

COMMENTS

Working for more than two years, the so-called Medical Writers Group, associated with the Scientific Committee of the Orthopedics and Traumatology Department at the General Hospital of São Paulo University Medical School is an authentic support to the Clinical Board and all the health professionals who work there, helping them with all their needs in texts related to health sciences, in all phases, from the project itself, the bibliographical revision and methodology and finally the literature revision and version to the English language.

Our group, created by the Orthopedics and Traumatology Department of SPUMS intends to be the first in Brazil to graduate Medical Writers giving support to groups of health professionals in transmitting their knowledge, similarly to the groups in Europe and the United States.

The librarians who work for SPUMS can be considered health professionals. They are used to giving technical support in elaborating scientific papers, and are very much interested in the development of this career that is emerging in our country, and due to their education they feel able to associate themselves with other professionals. Because of these concerns, the initiative of the Scientific Committee of the Orthopedics and Traumatology Institute of SPUMS, and the unrestricted support of the professors, stimulated us to write, as medical writers in education, this whole paper.

REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS

Work performed at the Orthopedics and Traumatology Institute at the General Hospital of São Paulo University São Paulo - Medical School

• ¹
  Associação Americana de Redatores Médicos. Disponível em: <http://www.amwa.org>. Acesso em: 23 jun. 2003.
• ²
  Associação Européia de Redatores Médicos. Disponível em: <http://www.emwa.org>. Acesso em: 23 jun. 2003.
• 3. Bellabarba C, Berger RA, Bentley CD et al. Cementless acetabular reconstruction after acetabular fracture. J Bone Joint Surg Am 83:868-869, 2001.
• 4. Berger RA, Quigley LR, Jacobs JJ et al. The fate of stable cemented acetabular components retained during revision of femoral component of a total hip arthroplasty. J Bone Joint Surg Am 81:1682-1683, 1999.
• 5. Jacobs JJ, Rosenberg AG, Galante JO et al. Letters to the editor. J Bone Joint Surg Am 84:143-144, 2002.
• 6. McDonald J. Clinical supervision: a review of underlying concepts and developments. Aust N Z J Psychiatry 36:92-98, 2002.
• 7. Redmond MC. Simplifying the writing process for the novice writer. J Perianesth Nurs 17:310-317, 2002.
• 8. Van Trigt AM, de Jong-van den Berg LT, Haaijer-Ruskamp FM et al. Journalists and their sources of ideas and information on medicine. Soc Sci Med 38:637-643, 1994.

Correspondence to

Rua Ovídio Pires de Campos, 333

CEP 05403-010 - São Paulo - SP - Brazil

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  24 June 2004
• Date of issue
  Mar 2004

History

• Received
  31 July 2003
• Accepted
  24 Dec 2003