The advances and global growth of biomedical research and scientific research have resulted in increased competitiveness and full agendas for researchers, other research team members, and publishers. In this context, the dissemination of the results of research projects is now being validated by increasingly demanding criteria and became an activity with defined rules and specific editorial and linguistic requirements. Therefore, it is not surprising that, over the last decades, the writing of scientific documents has been approached as a task to be performed by people with specific predispositions or acquired skills.
Scientific communication and medical writing as a job
Due to the particularities of scientific communication and medical writing and to the excessive workload of research team members, these tasks started to be assigned to staff members who seem more “gifted” for this purpose. However, considering the increasing demands in terms of document formatting, referencing, and peer review, the writing of scientific documents became a challenge for professionals without specific training and who usually integrate this activity in their busy professional routine.
These challenges led to the emergence of the professional activity currently known as medical writing. Medical writers are professionals with academic training in health sciences and specific technical skills who are exclusively dedicated to the writing of scientific documents related to biomedical research projects, both in the regulatory and communication/education fields.
Medical writing or ghost writing: after all, who wrote?
Currently, the role and involvement of medical writers in the writing of scientific articles, for publication in peer reviewed journals, is already recognized by most biomedical journals and we can even find specific instructions regarding the acknowledgment of this type of collaboration. Considering that the medical writer is not sufficiently involved in the conception and operationalization of the research project to be included in the list of authors (ICMJE guidelines), some scientific journals are now demanding the inclusion of information regarding the involvement of medical writers in the process of writing and submission and a signed consent of the medical writer to be acknowledge in the document. Even though, the professional relationship and collaboration with medical writers still lacks transparency in many cases. This situation certainly stems from established preconceptions regarding authorship, which became relevant due to the high level of competition in these areas.
Several publications and entities have referred the term ghost writing as an activity in which a medical writer or other professional—not included in the list of authors—is not referred or acknowledge in any section of the document. As the collaboration is deliberately concealed, editors, reviewers and readers wrongly assume that the document was written exclusively by the authors, without the support of a professional exclusively dedicated to this activity. Several ethical issues persist in the scope of collaborations with medical writers, which are not yet globally accepted and recognized.
Who´s in charge here?
Medical writing ethical concerns relate also to the adopted collaboration model, which reflects the responsibility of all the involved parties: corresponding author, co-authors, and medical writer. The discussion of the model shall assume that the authors are responsible for the scientific content of the article, in all possible scenarios. The medical writer is responsible for the proper editing of the manuscript, by following all the grammatical rules and the guidelines for good practice in scientific writing, in close collaboration with authors and always reflecting their scientific points of view. Additionally, the medical writer shall ensure that the collaboration is carried out in a structured manner, with total transparency and involvement of the authors in all phases of planning, writing, and reviewing.
The collaboration with a medical writer does not guarantee, by itself, the success of a publication, but it ensures its clarity and linguistic, structural, and scientific accuracy. It also reduces journals´ response timing, with advantages for the peer review process. In a near future, it is expected that the partnership between researchers and medical writers, or even the inclusion of medical writers as members of research teams, may be considered a common symbiotic practice in which all parties, including the scientific community, are duly acknowledged and compensated.
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Take care!
Paula
