Clinician's Guide to Medical Writing

Book excerpt: This book is for the clinician who wants to write. It is for the physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner who sees patients and who wants to contribute to the medical l- erature. You may be an assistant professor aspiring to p- motion or a clinician in private practice who seeks the personal enrichment that writing can bring. If you are new to medical writing or even if you have been the author of some articles or book chapters and seek to improve your abilities, this book can help you. Who am I that I can make this assertion and write this book, both fairly presumptuous? Here’s my reasoning. As a practicing physician, writing has been my avocation; unlike the authors of many other writing books, I am not a journal editor. Over 14 years in private practice and 26 years in a- demic medicine, I have written all the major models described in this book: review articles, case reports, edito- als, letters to the editor, book reviews, book chapters, edited books, authored books, and reports of clinical research st- ies. Most have been published. Not all. Perhaps my most signi?cant quali?cation is not that I have managed to p- duce a lengthy curriculum vitae. In my opinion, what is more important for you, the reader, is that I have made all the errors. That’s right, the mistakes.