Medical Writing: A Guide for Clinicians, Educators, and Researchers

by Robert B. Taylor

This book is a clear and comprehensive guide that assists readers in translating observations, ideas, and research into articles, reports, or book chapters ready for publication. For both researchers and practicing physicians, skills in medical writing are essential. Dr. Robert B. Taylor, a distinguished leader in academic medicine, uses a clear, conversational style throughout this book to emphasize the professional and personal enrichment that writing can bring. The text includes in depth instructions for writing and review articles, case reports, editorials and letters to the editor, book reviews, book chapters, reference books, research protocols, grant proposals, and research reports. This third edition is additionally fully updated to include the intricacies of medical writing and publishing today, with new coverage open access, pay to publish and predatory journals, peer review fraud, publication bias, parachute studies, public domain images, and phantom authors. Loaded with practical information, tips to help achieve publication, and real world examples, Medical Writing can improve skills for clinicians, educators, and researchers, whether they are new to writing or seasoned authors.

436 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Robert B. Taylor, M.D. is Professor Emeritus of Family Medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine in Portland, Oregon and Professor of Family and Community Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School. A board-certified family physician, Dr. Taylor is a 1961 graduate of the Temple University School of Medicine. He trained in the United States Public Health Service Hospital at Norfolk, Virginia, and was in private family practice in New Paltz, New York for fourteen years. In 1978 he joined the faculty of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1984, Dr. Taylor moved to Oregon, where he served as Chairman of the Family Medicine Department of the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine until 1998. He is the author and editor of more than 30 medical books including Family Medicine: Principles And Practice (6 Editions), White Coat Tales: Medicine’s Heroes, Heritage And Misadventures, Medical Wisdom And Doctoring: The Art Of 21st Century Medicine, Diagnostic Principles and Applications and On The Shoulders of Medicine’s Giants. Dr. Taylor is married, and he and his wife, Anita, have two daughters and four grandchildren. Now living in Virginia Beach, VA, he is currently retired from active practice but continues to write medical books for health professionals.

Reviews

[Scott Pearson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much of academic literature and advancement revolve around biomedical publications. Researchers focus on peer-reviewed publications, but other forms of writing abound: grant proposals, books for healthcare workers, books for the reading public, and journals for healthcare workers. The issues posed by medical writing are relatively common across the entire enterprise. Here, Robert Taylor attempts to distill insights from his writing career into one succinct book. The resulting education can inspire readers, anticipate potential issues, and increase future writers’ confidence to enhance their impact.

Topics include: writing style, developing an idea, writing in the correct genre, grant proposals, and publication. The wisdom gleaned is so rich that I often could only read 1-2 chapters per day without growing tired. Writing for publication is a hard task, one requiring persistence and encountering much rejection. Writers need to equip themselves for the long haul, and a book like Taylor’s can prepare us to go on a lasting run.

[J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I most like:
• I did not know that medical writing is also a problem for native speakers. This book quickly gave me this conclusion. In addition, I now know that medical writing is a long process and one need a lot of time and effort to master it. Therefore, it is no wonder, as a non-native English speaker, that I am having problems in writing my first papers. Finally, I also concluded that writing a manuscript could not be finished in few days and by one person (I am not to be blamed then!).
• The book mentions real life examples from published papers. I wished they were more.
• The book have tables that summarize information regarding certain topics. For examples, "The origins of selected medical words," p. 54. In addition, some common mistakes and corrections.
• I like the author's enthusiasm about the Etymology of words. I am a big enthusiast too. I think this is reflected in how detailed the author supports his points of view.


What I most dislike:
• I found many words and expressions in this book very hard to understand. I had to use the dictionary a lot. I would not say that I read a lot in English since years and think my English is good. This is very subjective. In comparison with "English for Writing Research Papers," by Adrian Wallwork (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...), I used the dictionary to look up new words at least 10 times more. I think this is ironic as the author warns against using hard words and expression. Moreover, I think that the greatest majority of those interested to read a book on medical writing would be people with English as their second language. Would it not be a good idea to use simple and commoner words? Examples of hard words include:

- "... Take ear infection, example, which most would describe as a mundane topic...", p. 13.==> What does mundane means? One of the nice methods advocated by the author is to use the Microsoft Word Thesaurus. I have Microsoft 2010 and it gave me the following suggestions: "Ordinary, dull, routine, every day, commonplace,... among others." Is not one or two of these words beautiful substitutes?
- "The review article is the Rodney Dangerfield of medical writing. Review articles get no respect, even though, as discussed in Chap. 5, they are often indexed and counted in calculating a journal’s Impact Factor..." To be like Rodney Dongerfiled? I do not have time to look who this person is and what it is supposed to mean if something is like him. This kind of expressions and hard words delayed my reading speed.
- "I think that highest accolades go to those case reports that change what we do in practice. p. 162" Accolades?

• The title of the book is a little bit different than the content. Although the title contains "medical writing", the concentration on writing in the book is little. I think that chapter two mostly address tips on writing. I wish that it was longer and it was more detailed. For example, the tables in it that mention wrong and correct pairs are amazing but unfortunately short. Nonetheless, this is somewhat understood as the book provides an overall view of the whole process of what to from what to do in case you had the idea of a research to getting your writing published. Adrian Wallwork's English for Writing research papers is deficient in this late point, but without argument, much stronger in teaching writing skills. For this purpose, I highly recommend "English for Writing Research Papers".

• I think that some technical recommendations needs to be updated. For example, the author dangerously says, " The disadvantages [of EndNote Program] are cost (currently $299 for the full product) and the steep learning curve facing the new user. The program is not “intuitive” and the online instructions are challenging... EndNote software is great for experienced and prolific medical authors, especially if compiling long lists of citations." However, in my opinion, beginning medical authors should use my more primitive “cut and paste” method, and spend their energy learning how to be better writers." I think that the time wasted using the traditional "cut and paste" method in a writer's first research is enough for him to learn using EndNote. However, I understand that the book was written in 2011 and referencing program might not have been famous back then. Moreover, the author wrote in page 7: "Not too many years ago, I was highly dependent on secretarial support; I dictated my articles and made corrections by hand to be changed on computer by my typist." Therefore, Dr. Taylor reminds me of some old professors of me at medical school who found some "mundane" tasks in computer to be very hard simply because they started using computers at an old age. Finally, there are now many free professional alternatives to EndNote. The most famous one of them in my opinion is Mendely (http://www.mendeley.com/)

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To sum up, the book is amazing because it gives a whole overview of the writing and publication process. However, I find some words and expressions in it very hard to quickly understand. I hope that it would be taken into consideration that many non-Native speakers will read such a book. The strongest advantage of this book is that it gives real-life examples from published papers. I hope that more will be given in future editions. Finally, I hope that more concentration will be given to writing skills.

[Povilas Ignatavicius · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the 3rd Edition of this book published in 2018.

There are several articles on medical writing. However, it's always nice and practical to have everything in one place. This book does this job perfectly. I have already published several articles before reading this book, but it's still was a great read.

You will find topics such as "Medical Writing: Getting Started and Getting Finished", "How to write a Report of a Research Study" and etc. There are even some hints for successful publishing.

I really recommend this book for every medical writer.

[شريف الطوانسي · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introductory book to medical writers but only to beginners not advanced professional writers.
It’s a good introduction to clinicians planning to start academic career
It shows secrets of publishing world with surprising facts
It’s recommended if you are to get into medical writing and not having a strong mentor, like if you are working in a community non academic facility