AMWA-GCAC Events

2023 Holiday Networking Dinner: December 6, 2023

Canta Napoli, Mount Prospect, IL

2023 Inaugural Book Club: November 9, 2023

Virtual

2023 Fall Networking Event: September 21, 2023

City Winery, Chicago, IL

2023 AMWA-GCAC Conference: July 28, 2023

Renaissance Hotel, Glenview, IL

Conference Overview

The 2023 AMWA-GCAC Conference was the first in-person conference since 2019 and was a great success.

The conference offered something for everyone, regardless of experience level or area of specialty.  Some presentation highlights are presented below (content prepared by Emily Morson, AMWA-GCAC communications volunteer):

In the keynote address, “What Can I Do? Strategies to Mitigate Health Misinformation in Social Media,” Dr. Emily Vraga presented research-based strategies for communicating science on social media. Simple techniques are surprisingly effective -- such as presenting the “weight of evidence,” or percentage of scientists who agree on a certain topic.

Dr. Vraga introduced a fascinating concept, “prebunking,” a “vaccine” to inoculate people against future misleading content. “Prebunking” teaches people to recognize and argue against rhetorical devices, logical fallacies, and financial motivations often found in misleading content. Prebunking joins a toolkit of better-known strategies for addressing misinformation, such as debunking, teaching facts, and explaining misunderstood media conventions like the norm of “balance.”

Dr. Vraga advises medical writers to defeat social media algorithms and cut through information overload by telling stories and using humor. Writers should work with trusted sources, such as doctors and community members. Writers should also learn about search engine optimization to ensure their information will be seen. Finally, Dr. Vraga reminds us that when called out, people often feel attacked and fail to change their minds, so our real target audience are bystanders.

The panel “A Day in the Life of a Scientific Publication Writer” was moderated by Ellen Grover and featured Dr. Marina Pazin, Dr. Elizabeth Little, and Kevin Lewis from the pharma, CRO, and medical devices industries. The panel advised entry-level writers on breaking into the field: apply to medical communications agencies, which offer training; doctorates are unnecessary but help you get a foot in the door; and academic writing skills transfer to regulatory writing. Crucial skills include project management, collaborating with many people, knowledge of the therapeutic area, and ability to communicate statistics. Panelists emphasized understanding the “downstream” purpose of the documents you write, including their place in the overall communications strategy and the audience’s needs. Panelists compared writing for academia versus industry. They also answered questions about intellectual property and presenting at conferences and explained typical timelines for producing conference abstracts or manuscripts.

Across all talks ran a theme: the need to understand keywords and algorithms in searches, on both Google and LinkedIn. Even if you’re not in marketing, learning more about search engine optimization might benefit your career.

We hope you’ll join AMWA-GCAC for upcoming events!

Spring Coffee Meetup: Apr 29, 2023

Panera Bread, Northbrook, IL

A Day in the Life of a Regulatory Writer  – Virtual: Mar 23, 2023 

Speakers: Teresa McNally, PhD (Senior Medical Writer at Whitsell Innovations) and Natalie Boone, MS (Senior Director Medical Writing Oncology TA Lead at Astellas)

Webinar Summary by Jennifer Dimitroff

In this webinar, the speakers talked about their roles and responsibilities as regulatory writers and how they entered the profession. The speakers were very encouraging about job prospects for those looking for a career change and for novice writers. They offered some thoughtful tips on how to handle "getting the experience without the experience" conundrum, such as starting at roles that interact with regulatory writers. Both experts agreed on the importance of AMWA as a resource for continuing education and job opportunity announcements.