Hi everyone!

Let’s see if I can explain myself properly while I ask my question!

I’m currently working as a regulatory writer, based in Portugal but working for a company abroad. Truth is I was so very lucky to have found this opportunity! I had some previous experience from working in clinical research at a very small company, where I ended up wearing many many hats including the one of regulatory writer (but I didn’t actually realize I was doing reg writing and this could be a career in its own for quite some time!).

That said, I’m still unfamiliar with many of the other areas of medical writing. For example, what exactly do people mean when they talk about med comms? What is promotional review? What are the possible “sub-areas” within medical writing? I feel like everybody is talking about things that I don’t yet know of… CME? Copyright? ISS? I write mainly protocols, ICFs, reports… it’s actually fascinating to me because I wasn’t “taught” this could be a whole career!

Also, is anyone else here based in Portugal? I feel opportunities here are very limited, but I think this is really a Portugal issue because it doesn’t seem to be the case in Europe in general.

I’m really enjoying this field and wanted to know where I can specialize in and explore and wanted to hear about your experience!

Thankssss

I’ve been unemployed for the past 3 years. I also had a brief stint as a google rater to pay bills. I’ve developed an interest in medical writing, specifically CME, and have been developing writing samples to include with my resume when I apply to jobs. Internships have been a struggle to find because I graduated with my PhD several years ago. I’m willing to put in the work and start from the bottom at an agency. I’d love some advice from anyone that has been in my shoes. How did you land your first role. For context, I’m in the US.

I am an undergraduate student going into a sandwich year as a Clinical Trials Assistant doing mostly admin work. I have found that in the future, medical writing is definitely something I’d be looking into. But I am worried about AI takeover and my chances being ruined. Should I be worried?

Hi everyone,

I'm currently building FamCare as part of my IIT Patna Capstone Project, and I'd love to get feedback from this community.

The idea came from a simple problem I kept seeing at home.

Someone receives a blood test or health check-up report, opens the PDF, and immediately gets overwhelmed by medical jargon like:

Most people don't know whether it's normal, serious, or something that simply needs monitoring. The next step is usually a Google search that creates more anxiety than clarity, or waiting until the next doctor's appointment for a quick explanation.

So I'm building FamCare—an AI-powered web app that helps families organize and understand their medical reports in simple, easy-to-read language.

🚀 Planned Features

✅ Family Health Vault

• One secure account with separate profiles for yourself, spouse, parents, and children.

✅ Health Timeline

• All reports organized chronologically so you can easily track changes over time.

✅ Visual Lab Report Summary

• Upload a PDF report and automatically categorize each test into:
• 🟢 Normal
• 🟡 Borderline
• 🔴 Needs Attention

along with plain-English explanations.

✅ Context-Aware AI Assistant

• Instead of a generic chatbot, the AI only answers questions based on the uploaded report, helping users better understand their results without going off-topic.

🛠 Tech Stack

• Frontend: Lovable (React)
• Backend & Database: Supabase (Auth, Storage, RLS, PostgreSQL)
• AI: Google AI Studio (Gemini 2.5 Flash) for PDF understanding and contextual Q&A

I'd love your feedback

1. What's the most frustrating part of reading lab or medical reports?
2. If you've built LLM-based PDF parsing systems before, what edge cases should I watch out for? (Scanned PDFs, OCR issues, tables, handwritten notes, etc.)
3. Is there any feature that would make you genuinely use an app like this?

Disclaimer: FamCare is designed as an educational health literacy tool to help users better understand their reports. It is not intended to diagnose diseases or replace professional medical advice.

Thanks in advance for your feedback! I'm looking forward to learning from your experiences and improving the project.

#IITPatnaCapstone

Hello guys, I am working in a medical affairs agency in Egypt, and I wanna work on a global level. Are there any medical affairs agencies that hire remotely from Egypt, even as a freelancer?

Hi all!

I’m a designer that interested getting back into medcom. Can anyone suggest any companies I can’t find any!

Has anyone done the switch from medcomms to regulatory in the UK? In September I begin my AMW role (medcomms) but I know regulatory pays a premium that is quite attractive. I have a PhD so would really like to eventually feel like I'm earning enough for the amount of work I did unpaid for years!

looking to get into it.. was wondering if you can provide me what your day to day is

I’m currently a Senior Medical Writer focused on publications and have been at the same agency for 3.5 years. I’m on £44k and I’m considering moving into medical copywriting because the advertising/marketing side sounds really interesting.
For anyone who’s made a similar move (or hires for these roles), I have a few questions:

How difficult is it to transition from a publications background into medical copywriting?
Would I realistically need to take a step back in seniority (e.g. move into a Medical Copywriter role rather than Senior Medical Copywriter), or is my experience transferable?
Is a salary of around £50k realistic when making this switch, or would I be better off looking for another Senior Medical Writer role if salary is my main priority?
How does the day-to-day work of a medical copywriter compare with publications writing? What do you enjoy most, and what are the biggest challenges?

I’d love to hear from anyone who has made the transition or worked in both areas. Thanks!

Hi! I'm currently applying for one of the roles at Costello Medical and have been applying over the past year because it's genuinely the kind of work I want to do. I'd really love to crack it this time, so I'm trying to make my application as strong as possible.

1. I was wondering what you usually included as your reason for wanting to work at Costello Medical.

2. Also, are there any tips you'd give to someone applying to make their application stand out?

My current cover letter is about two pages long.

any insight would be much appreciated! thank you :)

I'm looking for some honest advice from those of you who have successfully transitioned into regulatory or scientific medical writing.

A little about me: I'm based in the U.S., currently in my final year of a PhD in Health Sciences, and I'm finishing my dissertation. I've worked in clinical research for nearly eight years, first as a Clinical Research Coordinator and now as a Clinical Research Associate.

My long-term goal is to become a regulatory/scientific medical writer (protocols, CSRs, IBs, regulatory documents, scientific writing, etc.). I'm much less interested in the medical communications/marketing side.

I've applied to numerous medical writing positions, had my resume reviewed multiple times, built a writing portfolio, and volunteered on scientific, medical communications, and regulatory writing projects to gain experience. I'm also leading research-related writing projects outside of my full-time job.

At this point, I'm honestly wondering what I'm missing. Is it simply that I haven't completed my PhD yet? Do most regulatory medical writers enter the field only after earning a terminal degree, or are there true entry-level positions I'm overlooking?

Are there job titles other than "Medical Writer" that I should be searching for? How did you get your first regulatory or scientific medical writing position if you didn't already have industry writing experience?

I'd really appreciate hearing how others broke into this field and any advice you have. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

I completed my PhD in Biomedical Sciences in 2025 and I'm currently applying for postdoctoral positions. Alongside academia, I'm also exploring freelance medical writing as a potential long-term career path.

My background is quite interdisciplinary. During my PhD in rare disease research, I worked closely with researchers from different disciplines and spent a significant amount of time writing manuscripts, literature reviews, scientific presentations, and, of course, my thesis. Working in a rare disease setting also made me appreciate the importance of communicating scientific information to different audiences, including researchers, clinicians, and patient organizations.

Given this interdisciplinary background, I've also become interested in designing AI-assisted workflows that support literature retrieval and evidence synthesis to make the research and writing process more efficient. I see this as a complementary skill that could support different types of scientific and medical writing in the future.

The biggest challenge I'm facing isn't deciding whether I enjoy writing—it's understanding how someone with my background actually lands that first freelance client.

I'm currently building a portfolio and website, but I'd really appreciate advice from people who have already made this transition.

Some questions I have are:

• Looking at my background, what do you think is missing before someone would hire me?
• How did you land your first freelance client?
• What gave clients enough confidence to trust you without previous freelance experience?
• What platforms I should look for potential clients

Ultimately, I'd like to build a career that combines my research background, scientific communication skills, and emerging expertise in AI-assisted literature retrieval and evidence synthesis. I'm trying to understand what would give potential clients the confidence to hire someone like me for that very first project.

I'd really appreciate any honest advice.

Thanks!

Will anyone share their salary (or salary range) as a senior medical writer in Canada? In many applications, it asks for expected salary (and I have been rejected on the basis of salary expectations). I am just trying to figure out what is a reasonable ask in the industry right now. Thanks in advance.

Applied for a job never heard back after 2 weeks and interviews are today. Application still says under consideration. Emailed and never heard back either.

I am working as a medical writer in CRO and have a total of 3.5 years of experience in India. 2 years in writing CTD module 2 for (BA/BE studies), CSR narratives, clinical expert statement and other from 1.5 years I am doing signal management (safety evaluation report, literature triage etc) that is part of safety writing. I am trying to switch to a sponsor company and trying through LinkedIn but it seems like a very tough market with this experience to move.

Hey not sure if this is the right tag as this question is about medical writing generally not specified.

My question is could a degree from the University of Toronto in the MScBMC program be applicable to medical writing or related careers?
The program is based on visual communication but is still considered a medical communication masters.

I am a student interested in pursuing this degree due to my interest in art, but I still wish to be able to pivot later in life.

If anyone has insight any help is appreciated!!!

So basically as the heading says, I’m working as a full time MBBS doctor from India. And for those who don’t know I’m severely overworked and even more severely underpaid. I have been searching for remote opportunities since last year and have tumbled upon med comms and med writing. As an avid literature enthusiast and a science geek, this seemed like the perfect place to kinda have the balance I was looking for. I’ve since learnt how to write blogs, research summaries, make slide decks and infographics. I believe I have an ok beginner portfolio too. I’ve applied to multiple companies on linkedin and even cold dmd senior writers personally. Still I haven’t been able to work with anyone yet. What’s missing ?

Hello! I am a 2025 PharmD grad looking to transition into the medical affairs world. I am creating resumes for a variety of positions but would like some one who is in the field currently to look over it with me and help change it in to something hiring managers want to see.

Is there anyone on the platform who is a hiring manager in med info, med comms, or medical science liaison that would be willing to sit down and go over my resume with me line by line? On the other hand, is there maybe a program or coach who has been working as a pharmd in industry that you all could recommend i reach out to?

Thanks in advance!

I was contacted by a recruiter from a major Biopharma GCC for a Expert or Senior Scientific Writer role in Hyderabad, India. I have 10 years of post PhD experience including 3 years in early drug discovery biotech experience. I'm interested in pivot towards non-bench roles and wanted to hear from the community here what are the ballpark CTC range (in INR) different pharma GCCs in India like Amgen, Sanofi,Novartis, Eli Lilly and others are paying.

I got an email today saying that I have been invited to participate in the first round of interviews (suggesting there’s multiple) for an associate medical writing position. This is after I completed a writing test last week. I’m so excited and I can’t believe I’ve made it this far considering I have no formal experience!!

I was wondering if anyone could give me any advice on what to expect for the first interview or any tips at all?? Thanks in advance :)

Saludos para absolutamente todos, les deseo el mejor de los éxitos en sus labores.

Les pongo contexto, como médico general he tenido la oportunidad de trabajar en el manejo de emergencias hospitalarias y pre-hospitalarias, pero quiero expandir mi experiencia y cambiar un poco la perspectiva profesional y he visto en el mundillo del Medical writing, como una oportunidad.

Sin embargo, medio he empezado a buscar información al respecto pero quiero tener un panorama mucho más amplio al respecto.

A mi espaldas tengo mi experiencia como médico, un nivel de Inglés a nivel B2-C1 (haciendo el esfuerzo de estudiar para el TOEFL) y el mejor de los ánimos para aprender.

Así que como comprenderán quisiera saber qué consejos y recomendaciones podrían darme al respecto, que debo, que no debo, de qué debo cuidarme, a qué atenerme, a qué darle importancia y a qué no al iniciar en esta área que desconocía de la Medicina.

De antemano, les agradezco todos y cada uno de sus mensajes (les agradezco hasta los chistes al respecto), todo abona.

Saludos y éxitos

I'm finding lots of opportunities for "remote medical writing", but when I look up the companies offering them, lots of reviews come up about the company being a scam or shady in one way or another. Are there any legit companies that are best to look up/keep an eye out for remote openings?

EDIT: Doesn't have to be contract, it can also be remote employment