Veterinary Medical Writing - Special Interest Group
The Veterinary Special Interest Group (vetSIG) was founded in 2019 to raise awareness of Medical Writing in the Veterinary Community
vetSIG objectives
- provide a forum for EMWA members to discuss and share information in the area of veterinary medical writing
- Present and illuminate the broad and diverse area of Veterinary Medical Writing
- Encourage veterinarians as well as others to get in touch
Organisation (as of February 2023)
- Co-chairs: Cemile Jakupoglu, Henry Smith
- Committee members: Jennifer Freymann, Miyuki Tauchi, Louisa Marcombes
- Supporting members: Beatrix Doer, Sandra Götsch-Schmidt, Jenifer Bell, Karim Montasser
- Veterinary section editors for Medical Writing (EMWA Journal): Louisa Marcombes, Jenifer Bell
Regular activities
Our regular activities include:
- Quarterly Meet&Share meetings (on-line) on the 1st Friday of the 3rd month in each quarter, to discuss matters affecting veterinary medical writers
- At least one annual outreach webinar for members and those with a possible future interest in veterinary medical writing
- Planning and development of new EMWA workshops and other educational offerings (Expert Seminar Series and webinars)
- Contributing to the Veterinary Section in the EMWA journal Medical Writing
- Providing networking opportunities virtually and at EMWA conferences.
Get involved
All EMWA members interested in veterinary medical writing and networking with like-minded colleagues are welcome to join us. To receive an invitation to join our quarterly meetings, please send an e-mail to: vets@emwa.org
Quarterly Meeting
The vetSIG hosts our quarterly "Meet & Share" session on the first Friday (afternoon) of March, June, September, and December, to discuss topics of interest for veterinary medical communication with members and guest speakers. Please contact vets@emwa.org for further details. Our meetings include tasters of veterinary medical writing (presentations by individual members on areas of their work), panel-style discussions on science, writing, and careers-related issues, and a Writers’ Corner section specifically to look at issues in our area of writing.
Forthcoming meetings (for 2023)
Friday, March 3rd @ 2.30 pm CET: Communicating Evidence with Passion.
Torun Wallgren and Louisa Marcombes discuss how they communicate an evidence-based message on issues they care about (tail docking for pigs, and brachycephalic dogs). Torun has much published research on the subject, plus web-based writing aimed for a wider audience, and Louisa broke ground with a graphic article in the EMWA journal. After the discussion, we will have a 10-min poll on some contentious words in veterinary medical communication.
Friday, June 2nd @ 2.30 pm CEST: How can vets/vet nurses train to be medical writers?
In this member-based discussion, we will look at how people from veterinary backgrounds train to become medical writers. We will also have a report on surveying medical writing companies’ attitudes to working with people from a veterinary background
Friday, September 1st @2.30 pm CEST: Agenda TDB
Friday, December 1st @2.30 pm CET: Agenda TBD
Previous meetings
We kicked off 2022 with a panel-style discussion on career migrations between veterinary and human medical writing led by Louisa Marcombes and Miyuki Tauchi, followed by a Writers’ Corner featuring veterinary verbalization (Jan). Our second meeting this year covered protocol writing as the main topic (as well as touching on shared decision making). We had ended 2021 with a special brunch meeting featuring an interview with Dr. Sarah Moody on the new veterinary medical product regulations in the EU and One Health, after covering career entry paths into veterinary medical writing, how to communicate of evidence-based veterinary medicine (illustrated by a discussion on honey for canine wound-healing, April), distributed vaccine manufacturing (July), and a US perspective on veterinary medical writing (October).
Don’t worry if you missed the meetings! We now have observer reports of previous meetings on a year’s worth of regular meetings, plus a recording of our special brunch event.
April 2021: How to write an evidence-based knowledge summary (Louisa Marcombes on the use of honey for canine would-healing). An observer report for the April 2021 meeting can be found here.
July 2021: A discussion on One Health and distributed vaccine manufacturing, followed by the results of a survey on members’ veterinary medical writing careers. An observer report (including meeting slides) can be found here.
October 2021: We got a North American perspective on veterinary medical writing from a North American perspective with Matthew Krecic, President of the American Industry Veterinarians Association. The meeting report (including meeting slides) can be found here.
December 2021 (outreach event): We discussed the new EU veterinary medical regulations and experiences of One Health work in Bangladesh with Sarah Moody. The video is available to watch here.
January 2022: We discussed migrations between veterinary and human medical writing with Miyuki Tauchi and Louisa Marcombes. We then took a “veterinary verbs” quiz to see how verb choice can spice up your veterinary meeting writing. A meeting report (including meeting slides) can be found here.
June 2022: Writing protocols for regulatory studies on veterinary medical products with Céline Nicolas and Sallie Cosgrove. The meeting report can be found here.
July 2022: Alexandra Dedman discussed her article on the Humianimal Trust in the Vet Times, and Petal Smart reported on the expert seminar on regulatory writing at EMWA’s 2022 conference. The meeting report can be found here.
October 2022: A shared decision making covering motivational interviewing with farm-based clients with Catarina Svensson and successful small animal consultations with Louise Corah. This meeting will be described in full in an article for the EMWA journal, proposed for summer of 2022.
January 2023 (outreach): A discussion with veterinary You Tube and mental health advocate Dr. Karim Montaser. The video is available to watch here.
Please e-mail vets@emwa.org for Zoom invitations and/or further details.
vetSIG Resources
Overview
https://journal.emwa.org/artificial-intelligence-and-digital-health/medical-communications-and-writing-for-patients/ (A short field guide to veterinary medical writing by Cemile Jakupoglu and Sandra Götsch in Medical Communications and Writing for Patients section of Medical Writing, December 2019)
Veterinary regulatory writing
https://www.vichsec.org/en/
https://journal.emwa.org/non-clinical-health-writing/veterinary-regulatory-writing-in-europe/
https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/veterinary-regulatory/overview/veterinary-medicines-regulation
Evidence-based veterinary medicine
http://www.ebvmlearning.org/
https://knowledge.rcvs.org.uk/evidence-based-veterinary-medicine/what-is-ebvm/
Case report writing / Case series writing
https://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/submission-guidelines/preparing-your-manuscript/case-report
https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/JAVMA-Guidance-for-Case-Series-Reporting.pdf
Systematic Review in animal research
https://www.radboudumc.nl/en/research/departments/health-evidence/systematic-review-center-for-laboratory-animal-experimentation
NC3Rs (National Centre for the Replacement, Reduction and Refinement of Animals Research)
https://nc3rs.org.uk
The vetSIG Story So Far …
EMWA’s veterinary medical communication special interest group was founded at the 2019 spring conference. A group of eight veterinarians came together at that conference. Realising just how many vets and vet-related medial writers were active across EMWA, they set up a group to meet, share information, and hold discussions across the wide-ranging area of veterinary medical communication.
EMWA’s president, Dr. Beatrix Dörr (herself a veterinarian!) has described the group as “vets and friends of vets”. Currently, we consist of about 30 “vets and friends of vets”, and that umbrella term covers veterinarians who treat pets and farm animals, vets doing veterinary or human regulatory writing for (V)ICH submissions, , vets writing for government and EU officials on public health, for pet owners and farmers, for the general public, vets teaching future vets, vets researching just about anything, and medical writers getting involved in any of these activities.
Our quarterly meetings have covered a range of topics from writing case studies, career entry and development, and One Health to the regulatory writing under the aegis of International Cooperation on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Veterinary Medicinal Products (VICH). From April 2021, we aim to include a “taster of veterinary medical communication” in meetings. Each taster is a short a talk delivered by one member about some aspect of veterinary medical communication. Meetings will also feature short questions on terminology conundrums.
As well as the meetings, we have our own section in Medical Writing, EMWA’s journal. Please see the “What we write for EMWA members” section for quick links and summary of our output
vetSIG Training and Education
There is one workshop in EMWA’s “Basics of Veterinary Regulatory Affairs” in the EPDC program
See: http://filemaker.emwa.org/workshops/view_workshop.php?recid=1526
Dr. Cemile Jakupoglu gave a webinar entitled: “Veterinary articles for scientific journals: Case Report”
See:View past webinars (Member login required)
Dr. Sandra Götsch gave a webinar entitled: Veterinary medical writing - same but different
Who we are (co-chair /committee members / support members)
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Henry Smith |
Louisa Marcombes Joint-section editor /Committee member |
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Miyuki Tauchi |
Jennifer Freymann |
Jen Bell Joint-section editor/ Supporting member |
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Beatrix Doerr |
Sandra Götsch-Schmidt |
Karim Montasser |
Cemile Jakupoglu Co-chair
What we write for EMWA Members
FLASH! Louisa contributed (possibly) the EMWA journal’s first full-length graphic article (on brachycephalic dogs. This was her eight consecutive contribution to the journal (I recommend looking at them all on the website.
Check out the graphics here: https://journal.emwa.org/a-virtual-workforce/veterinary-medical-writing/
Dr. Cemile Jakupoglu and Sandra Götsch write about careers in veterinary medical writing in A short field guide to veterinary medical writing.
See: https://journal.emwa.org/artificial-intelligence-and-digital-health/medical-communications-and-writing-for-patients/
Dr. Karim Montasser writes about the transition from vet to writer (Vol. 28, No. 1, March 2019)
See: Medical Writing | Careers in medical writing | Veterinary Medical Writing (emwa.org)
Dr. Jennifer Freeman writes about how medical writers can learn about transparency from veterinarians (Vol. 28, N0. 2, June 2019).
See: Medical Writing | Generics and biosimilars | Veterinary Medical Writing (emwa.org)
Drs. Beatrix Döerr and Isabelle Wohllebe wrote about the growing use if real-world data in veterinary medicine, following similar developments in human medicine (Vol. 28, No. 4, December 2019)
Dr. Beatrix Döerr writes about career moves and evidence-based veterinary medicine (Vol 28. No 3, Sept 2019.
See: Medical Writing | Trends in medical writing | Veterinary Medical Writing (emwa.org)
Drs. Beatrix Döerr and Isabelle Wohllebe wrote about the growing use if real-world data in veterinary medicine, following similar developments in human medicine (Vol. 28, No. 4, December 2019)
See: Medical Writing | Artificial intelligence and Digital Health | Veterinary Medical Writing (emwa.org)
Dr. Cemile Jakupoglu writes about Bioequivalence studies in veterinary medical writing (Vol. 29, No.1, March 2020)
See: https://journal.emwa.org/visual-communications/veterinary-medical-writing/
Dr. Beatrix Döerr writes about developments in veterinary medical research, Dr. Cemile Jakupoglu wrote about developments in regulatory veterinary medicine and Henry Smith wrote about the situation with a zoonotic disease in Japan (Vol. 29, No. 2, June 2020)
See: Medical Writing | The Data Economy | Veterinary Medical Writing (emwa.org)
Dr. Karim Montasser writes about the placebo effect as experienced by pet owners and the lessons about homeopathy (Vol 30, No. 1, March 2021).
See: Medical Writing | Social media | Veterinary Medical Writing (emwa.org)
Our new section editors (Louisa and Jen) launch a regular feature From the Horse’s Mouth, and Louisa Marcombes writes about Comparative medicine: A view from the veterinary clinic.
See: Medical Writing | Medical decision making and health technology assessment | Veterinary Medical Writing (emwa.org)