Medical writing is now a popular career choice that is highly competitive among senior healthcare executives, academics, and new graduates. If you have a life sciences degree or PhD, it is not sufficient to stand out in offering medical copywriting services. The reason is that the modern-day medical communication market is so demanding.
Even having several years of scientific writing experience does not imply that you can run a successful medical copywriting agency. Like the other industries, medical communication employers place a high value on freelancers and employees who possess more soft skills. Soft or interpersonal skills are character traits that determine how a person relates to other people.
Unlike hard professional skills like life sciences, digital, and technical qualifications, no one teaches soft skills formally. However, you cannot become a successful creative agency in the medical field without these skills. These include;
Problem Solving
If you own a medical writing agency, you will not succeed unless your writers have excellent problem-solving skills. You should not give in but rather persist until you solve a problem as this is crucial in managing the challenges that will come your way. Problem-solving has a strong connection to both adaptability and creativity in medical communications. It is a quality that should be present in any medical writer in Kuala Lumpur.
The skill is crucial for the success of medical advertising, healthcare education, health care, social media, peer-review publishing, and medical affairs. A reputable copywriting service looks for employees who have a creative eye to see potential problems from various perspectives.
Adaptability
Your background may allow you to have some in-depth knowledge in a certain therapeutic area. However, an adaptable medical writer in Kuala Lumpur should be able to handle a broad range of topical issues and therapeutic areas.
Healthcare sectors and pharmaceutical advances change constantly. Thus, a healthcare creative agency tends to value writers who pick up the latest research findings quickly or appropriate customer trends for particular accounts.
1. The Ability to Connect
Most people think that medical writers should be introverts. However, you cannot deliver timely quality content unless you have excellent people skills. The most important thing is being able to connect with people either online or in person.
You could be making a presentation, sharing your initial draft with the medical editor or explaining a concept to the senior creative agency manager. You have to make sure that your readers feel connected to the message.
2. Active Listening
If you work as a writer at a medical writing agency, you need active listening skills. It will help you take clear project briefing from customers or contribute to the other team meetings before you take the next step. Therefore, you should use undivided attention to listen to the speaker.
Some of the speakers may use their technical jargon or industry language to pass across their message. You should listen actively, clarify their answers, and ask the right questions. Since you will be the one who will be writing the detail, you have to make sure that you understand the speaker. Don’t just jump into conclusion before you offer your opinion.
3. Be Open to Criticism
It can be a challenge to work with medical customers and professionals who are from real-world patients lives. Therefore, it can be hard to present new concepts to such reviewers for consumer health promotion and patient education. A successful medical writer will be patient and open to critics of your work by different reviewers.
Be ready to support your ideas and drafts by explaining why you chose to use particular phrases, data or approaches. It may force you to accept conflicting edits of your drafts, generation of new content solutions, and ditch your initial ideas. You need all these tips to succeed in your career at a healthcare copywriting agency.