Importance of Diversity in Medical Writing
“Check self rather than check boxes”
Tammy Wilkens employee of Otsuka
2023 Clinical Data Disclosure Transparency and Plain Language Summaries
Writing is a powerful communication tool in all medical writing. Many public health written interventions have changed perspectives on health issues. In medicine the current buzz is around personalized medicine. Good clinicians acknowledge the diverse factors that come into a patient's consultation. Medical writers can’t provide personalized medicine with drugs or physical assessments, but they can through personalized writing. Most medical writers lack though face-to-face interaction in a clinical setting. As a result, it can become easy to go into check box mode rather than check self. Clinical interactions can show us our bias in interactions with patients. How do writers get the “clinical” experience of seeing the diversity around them? Here are some ways I try to keep my diversity bias in check, because I acknowledge that bias is real and exist in us:
1. People watching. I like to go to cultural events and be present. Watching people's verbal and nonverbal communication help me see that the way I view the world has limitations.
2. Reading diverse books. Reading different perspectives of the world helps absorb into my writing the various audiences I am writing to.
3. Working with advocacy groups and those invested in the disease or subject I am working on. Being attuned to those on the ground everyday moves me past my bias to see the complexity of an issue.
During a recent conversation I mentioned I was a medical writer. The woman said, “wait do you write the documents that our son received for his clinical trial?” Upon further evaluation I found out they were referring to informed consents. I said I have not worked on any of those yet. The woman said, the papers were awful, and her son couldn’t understand most of it. Their adopted son, had a disability, came from a non-native English-speaking country, and struggled with the document language. I now have the vision of that teenager in my mind when I write going forward.
Keeping humanity and humility in my writing is critical. It’s what keeps me learning and trying to check myself when writing. I like poems and I would like to share this one I have been thinking about lately.
Every Day We Are Learning by Amanda Gorman
Every day we are learning.
How to live with essence, not ease.
How to move with haste, never hate.
How to leave this pain that is beyond us
Behind us.
Just like a skill or any art,
We cannot possess hope without practicing it.
It is the most fundamental craft we demand of ourselves.
