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Day in the Life of a Senior Medical Writer
Written on Friday, June 16, 2023
We spoke to Hannah Wedge, Senior Medical Writer at OPEN Health, about what it’s been like since she joined the organisation in November 2022.
Tell us a bit about your current role
Since I joined OPEN Health, my main role as a Senior Medical Writer has been to develop technical, informative, educational, and promotional content for healthcare professionals and patients. The development of this content requires a deep dive into research and involves working with other team members internally (such as editorial, client services, and creative teams). This is to ensure that the work we develop is of the highest possible quality and complies with the pharmaceutical code set by regulatory bodies such as the ABPI.
Luckily, I get to work on a lot of different types of projects in my role. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to work on assets such as talking head videos, podcasts, summary slide decks, and leave pieces, but the variety isn’t just in types of content; I also work across different therapy areas, which keeps things super interesting.
What aspect of your day or role do you most enjoy?
It’s difficult to say since there are so many elements that go into this! But overall, I think I’ve really liked learning about the impact of medicines that we work on for patients; since we work so closely with experts and key opinion leaders in the field, we get to hear this all directly from them. For example, as a writer, you may attend advisory board meetings where you sit in and listen to these discussions first-hand and get a better understanding of their experiences. That’s really interesting. But mostly, it’s the sense of knowing that the work you do has the potential to have real impact down the line.
How would you describe the culture at OPEN Health?
I guess it all started in the interview stages. Everyone I spoke to was really engaged, and there seemed to be a real emphasis on making sure employees felt valued. I’d definitely say I’ve felt the same since joining. I’ve always felt supported when I’ve expressed interest in trying something different, such as a type of project or therapy area, which makes a huge difference. Everyone really wants to achieve great outcomes and produce high-quality work. It’s a big company, so it’s great to have those benefits, but OPEN Health is split into many teams, so you still get the friendly and fun culture of a small agency.
What training and development opportunities are available to help you excel in your role at OPEN Health?
There are a lot of different resources that cover a range of topics. I’m still going through different training modules, and I constantly stumble across new ones to try on the Bloom platform. But even beyond the formal training, we have Teams channels and smaller chats within our teams that host a wealth of helpful information.
What have you learned in your past year as a Medical Writer?
I have been a Medical Writer for about 3 years now. As a Medical Writer, you are always learning, especially if you are changing therapy areas or clients. What has been great since I joined OPEN Health is how I have been able to get involved in a lot of pitch work. This is something that I had not done before, and it has helped me learn about the business aspects of the industry.
OPEN Health aims to improve health outcomes and patient wellbeing; how do you see this in action in your role at OPEN Health?
Improving health outcomes and patient wellbeing underlies everything we do at OPEN Health. Any content I produce is predominantly aimed at ensuring that patient treatments are optimised. I like that I can see how everything we do can impact patients down the line, and I am excited to see how my role changes and develops here.
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