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 March 2022)
- 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
The vetSIG hosts the “Meet & Share” session on the last Friday of January, April, July and October to discuss current topics of interest (however, for this year, the 2022 Q2 meeting is switched from April to May).
Our regular activities include:
- 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
We hold a virtual meeting at 3 pm Central European Time (for the season) on the last Friday of January, April, July, October; however, for this year the April meeting has been switched to May. 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.
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.
An observer report for the April 2021 meeting can be found here:
An observer report for the July 2021 meeting (including meeting slides) can be found here:
An observer report for October 2021 meeting (including meeting slides) can be found here:
Sunday, December 12th, 2021 @12 noon CET: Brunch/Early Lunch with Sarah Moody available to watch here:
An observer report for the January 2022 meeting (including meeting slides) can be found here:
An observer report for the June 2022 meeting (rearranged form April/May) can be found here.
Friday, July 29th @3 pm CET: Q2 on-line Meet&Share. We will have an interview-style discussion with Dr. Alexandra Dedman, on her article “When great minds think alike – vet and doctor collaboration” in the Vet Times, and review the EMWA spring conference and expert seminars from the vetSIG’s perspective. We also plan to feature a short Writers’ Corner exercise.
Friday, October 28th @3 pm CET: Q4 on-line Meet&Share. Our Q4 meeting will have Shared Decision Making is a hot topic in human medicine, and is coming to animal medicine too! We have expert speakers from the worlds of large and small animal medicine (Drs. Catarina Svensson and Louise Corah, respectively) to guide us through how this might work, and what it means for medical writers. A Writers’ Corner discussion (possibly on style pointers or abstract writing) is also planned.
We hope to announce details of further special event meetings in the second half of 2022.
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
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)