newsletter 09202012

The Indiana Chapter

AMWA Indiana Chapter Newsletter September 2012 of 6

September 2012 Newsletter

FROM THE PRESIDENT,

AMWA INDIANA CHAPTER

Dear Chapter Members,

Welcome to a new year with AMWA!

I sincerely thank Anne Wolka for leading our chapter, as

president last year and in other roles in many previous

years. You may recall the spectacular chapter

conference she organized in 2010.

This year my objective is to start a conversation about

AMWA among our chapter members and Indiana‟s larger

biomedical community. Please join in and let us hear your

voice! I hope this conversation will help us get to know

each other, learn what we want our chapter to be, and

build enthusiasm for excellence in medical

communication. What could we talk about?

Our chapter

How can we make our chapter itself (in contrast to AMWA

at the national level) meaningful to you? To find out, I plan

to call each of you within the next 2 months. Please share

your ideas with me and tell me what you honestly think. If

your interest in AMWA lies only at the national level, tell me

that too. For example, would you benefit from chapter-

wide distribution of short professional biographies of each

chapter member, from an online directory of our chapter‟s

freelance writers, or from an informal workshop on some

aspect of medical communication?

Membership & Volunteers

Barbara Lightfoot, our president-elect and membership &

volunteer chair, will welcome our new members and ask

exiting members how we can improve our chapter.

Please tell her about any organization or individual that

might benefit from AMWA membership.

Kristin Bullok, our LinkedIn AMWA Indiana chapter

subgroup manager, has been helping chapter members

hold discussions online. Please let her know about ways

she could use LinkedIn to benefit our chapter.

AMWA, at both the national and local levels, exists only

because of its volunteers. These people give, but also get.

Working with colleagues to build our profession helps

people in early or middle stages of their careers develop

professional relationships, learn about their profession,

develop leadership and technical skills, and gain visibility.

People in late stages of their careers benefit from the

satisfaction of setting goals and standards for the

profession, of preparing the next generation to continue

something that matters, and of leaving the profession they

love better than they found it.

It‟s easy to volunteer at the chapter level. Just tell me or

any other chapter leader (see list at the end of this

newsletter) what you want to do. Don‟t worry about

whether you know enough to participate – you do!

Become a committee member if you would like to devote

at least 3 hours per month to our chapter. In brief, the

education committee plans educational projects and an

annual chapter conference; the program committee

plans stimulating events that include presentations,

informal workshops, and networking; the membership &

volunteer committee acts as the chapter‟s human

resources department; the newsletter committee reports

information about AMWA, our chapter, and Indiana‟s

biomedical community; and the marketing committee

develops professional relationships among our chapter

members and Indiana‟s biomedical community.

If you are too busy for a committee role but can spare a

few hours this year, choose from a list of individual tasks

available from any chapter leader. That list will soon be

available on our chapter website.

Volunteering at the national level is easy, too. Just take a

look at the „Call for Volunteers‟ page at AMWA‟s website

(http://www.amwa.org/default.asp?id=560) for a list of

opportunities, and submit your volunteer interest form by

September 24. (You can find more information in the “Best

Of” column later in the newsletter.) If you are interested in

presenting a workshop, leading an open session, or

presenting a poster at the 2013 AMWA annual conference

in nearby Columbus, OH, tell Laura Oberthur Johnson, our

education chair, so she can help you prepare.

Outreach

Laura Oberthur Johnson and Ellen Stoltzfus will speak to

university students about careers in medical writing. Laura

needs volunteers from the chapter to help with an

integrated research project she designed to assess the

medical communication needs of the Indiana biomedical

community and to find the unmet needs that our chapter

and its members can fill. Tara Polston, our marketing chair,

is busy developing professional relationships between our

chapter and that community.

Events

Brad Philbrick, our program chair, is planning an outreach

event to explain to the community what AMWA and

medical communication are and to learn from the

community what its medical communication views and

needs are. He is also planning 3 additional educational

events designed to help chapter members get to know

each other and become better communicators. As for

the past 2 years, we will podcast these events on the

http://www.amwa.org/default.asp?id=560

The Indiana Chapter


chapter website for the benefit of those too distant or busy

to attend.

Local networking events are being planned by Esther

Brooks Asplund for the Bloomington area, by Jennifer

Wampler for the Evansville area, by David Bell for the Fort

Wayne area, and by Daniela Ilijevski for the Munster area.

Please let me know if you would like to plan an event for

the Lafayette area.

Qing Zhou, our newsletter editor, will report these events as

well as other information of interest to our members.

Please let her know if you would like to see or submit an

article or interview on some particular aspect of medical

communication. Qing will also broadcast a monthly

newsflash that advertises upcoming chapter events and

summarizes AMWA news you might have missed.

I am planning a simple chapter conference for next Spring

in downtown Indianapolis. It will emphasize networking

and educational open sessions, to help chapter members

get to know one another. Please let me know if you would

like to present an open session on one of your areas of

expertise.

National AMWA

The annual conference this year (October 4-6 in

Sacramento, CA) will include 4 new events to help you get

to know your colleagues continent-wide―a free (with

registration) lunch, an afternoon speed networking session,

an evening wine and cheese reception on Thursday, and

a free lunch on Saturday. Our chapter members

attending the conference will get together for dinner after

the Thursday reception. Details about the dinner will be

sent to conference registrants later this month.

You may take up to 4 (a maximum of 3 for past

conferences) of the 87 credit workshops offered at this

conference and attend as many noncredit workshops and

open session as you like.

AMWA is developing, and plans to offer within the next 3

years a certification test of medical writing skills that will in

part be rooted in the Drug Information Association (DIA)

model of competency in pharmaceutical medical writing

proposed by David Clemow (of our chapter) and others.

Here‟s to talking with you!

David Caldwell

2012-2013 Indiana chapter president

Tel: (317) 846-2183

Email: [email protected]

Reports from 2012 Indiana/Ohio

Valley Chapter AMWA Conference

The 2012 Indiana/Ohio Valley Chapter AMWA Conference

took place on May 4-5, 2012, at Conner Prairie Interactive

History Park in Fisher, Indiana. The one-and-a-half-day

event offered 35 registrants 2 credit workshops, 5 dinner

roundtables, and 10 career enrichment open sessions.

Cindy Hamilton, PharmD, ELS, led the 2 workshops:

“Creating Effective Poster Presentations” (CP/EW/PH)

[3001] and “Essential Ethics for Medical Communicators” (ES) [2006]. Cindy is a past president of national AMWA,

and in 2011, received the Golden Apple Award for

consistent excellence in teaching in AMWA‟s educational

program.

The 2012 Indiana/Ohio Valley Chapter AMWA Conference

continued to offer career enrichment open sessions, which

were introduced in the conference program 2 years ago

and have since been well received by conference

attendees. This year, 10 speakers presented on a variety of

topics, ranging from AMWA educational opportunities to

institutional review boards and contracting for medical

writers. Podcasts and slides of these presentations will be

available on the chapter website in early November (6

months from the conference date).

In addition to open sessions, this year‟s chapter

conference offered dinner roundtables, similar in format to

the popular breakfast roundtables at the national AMWA

conference. Participants enjoyed interactive discussions

at 5 dinner roundtables held on the first day of the

conference.

Participants

at the 2012

chapter

conference.

(Photos

provided by

Anne Wolka.)

The Indiana Chapter


The conference organizers, Barbara O. Lightfoot and Laura

Oberthur-Johnson, would like to thank the Workshop

Leader (Cindy Hamilton), conference registrar (David

Caldwell), attendees, open session presenters, dinner

roundtable moderators, workshop monitor, Yvonne Todd,

and the Conner Prairie staff, as well as MBP Distinctive

Catering for making the 2012 Indiana/Ohio Valley Chapter

AMWA Conference a great success!

Qing Zhou, Newsletter Editor

Brief Notes from Open Sessions

OS 01 AMWA Educational Opportunities

Presenter: Barbara Snyder, MA (President, AMWA)

Options of AMWA‟s educational opportunities

Expanded certificate program

Additional educational resources

OS 02 The DIA Medical Writing Competency Model

Presenter: Michael Mihm, PhD

What is the DIA Medical Writing Competency Model?

How can it be used?

Why do I care?!

OS 03 Locating and Using Electronic Resources

Presenter: Elaine Skopelja, MALS, AHIP

Locating electronic resources

Using electronic resources

Organizing your resources

Resource URLs

OS 04 Medical Writing in the HEOR World

Presenter: Kathy Oneacre, MA

Introduction to Health Economics and Outcomes

Research

What we write: manuscripts, literature reviews,

meta-analyses, dossiers

How we manage what we write

OS 05 Health Writing

Presenter: Kurt Ullman, RN, BSPA, MHA

Medical Writing: regulatory writing, scientific

publications, professional-to-professional

Health Writing: closer to journalism, larger and

much more heterogeneous audience, it informs

people

(Please see a more detailed summary provided by Nancy

Pollack for this open session later in the newsletter.)

OS 06 Know the Deal: Understanding and Navigating

Common Contract Terms and Issues

Presenter: Brad Maurer, JD

Enforceability

Addressing disputes

Calculating damages

Other remedies

Statutes of limitations and repose

Alternative dispute resolution

(Please see a more detailed summary provided by Brad

Philbrick for this open session later in the newsletter.)

OS 07 From QUOROM to PRISMA: How Medical Writers Can

Improve the Reporting of Systematic Reviews and Meta-

Analyses

Presenter: Barbara Lightfoot, BS, CCRP

Systematic review and meta-analysis defined

Importance of systematic reviews and meta-

analyses

From QUOROM to PRISMA: history of PRISMA

Statement development

Discussion of PRISMA components: 27-item

checklist and flow diagram

Inclusion of PRISMA in Instructions to Authors:

examples of journals that require the use of

PRISMA

OS 08 Editing for the Medical Writer

Presenter: Rod Everhart, BA, ELS

What does a medical editor do?

Skill set

Relationship between editor and medical writer

Future direction of medical

editing/communication

Sample editing test

OS 09 Medical Writing and Applications to Human Subjects

Institutional Review Boards

Presenter: Gretchen Parker, PhD, RAC

Introduction and history

The role and responsibilities of institutional review

boards (IRBs)

Major areas that must be addressed in an IRB

submission

Common mistakes made in writing a research

application submission to an IRB

OS 10 Regulatory Issues in Medical Device Development

Presenter: Barbara Lightfoot, BS, CCRP

Device classes

Identification of: 510(K) premarket notification,

predicate device, Investigational device

exemption, premarket approval

Global perspectives for device approval

o United States

o European Union

o China

o Russia

Podcasts and slides of these presentations will be

available on the chapter website in early November,

6 months from the conference date.

The Indiana Chapter


Open Session Summaries

Health Communications (OS 05)

Speaker: Kurt Ullman, RN, BSPA, NHA

By Nancy S. Pollack

Our AMWA organization calls us medical writers, but Kurt

Ullman made a distinction between medical writers and

health writers in his presentation on Health

Communications.

A registered nurse with a master‟s degree in Health

Administration, Kurt is the owner of Medical

Communicators and provides writing services to

magazines, websites, and CME providers. He has written

over 500 articles, many on health-related topics, for both

professional and consumer audiences. Clients have

included The Rheumatologist magazine, Health Behavior

News Service, VersusMed, and WebMD. He has also

written a weekly newspaper column for syndication by the

Indiana University Medical Center and Best Practice

Guidelines for a hospital chain in the Midwest, and worked

for 6 years as a staff writer and editor in radio, television,

magazines, and newspapers.

Medical writing vs health writing

Kurt explained that the major differences between the 2

types of writing are based on their audience and their

function. He pointed out that medical writing (eg,

regulatory, professional-to-professional) is targeted,

functional, and imparts knowledge, whereas health writing

is closer to journalism, targets a more heterogeneous

audience, and imparts information.

Medical writing: Health writing:

More focused More eclectic

Imparts scientific

knowledge

Gives information

Mainly regulatory or

professional audiences

Varied audiences

Tightly formatted Variation in formats

Legal, structured voice Conversational voice

Team-oriented Smaller teams and more

single writers

More likely to be work for

hire

More variability in copyright

ownership

What does a health writer do?

Kurt gave examples of the types of writing a health writer

could be hired to produce:

Health information (awareness, websites, diseases,

patient handouts)

Health education (patient care, treatment

options, new procedures)

Decision support (treatment choices, outcomes);

often this would be more technical

Marketing (for example, to differentiate one

medical practice from another)

Some examples of health writing for magazines

Service line magazines. An example of this would be a

hospital promoting their services or patient satisfaction to

primary care physicians to generate referrals

Mostly for referral physicians in the community

Marketing tool

Community magazines

Audience is potential patients from the area

Focuses on what the hospital does best or wants

to push

More focused on features than news-oriented

General magazines

May talk about specific disease or group of

diseases

May have a wider spectrum of story interest,

including nonmedical stories

Approach by the writer is much different

Contracting for Medical Writers―Know the Deal:

Understanding and Navigating Common Contract Terms

and Issues (OS 06)

Presenter: Brad Maurer, JD, Faegre Baker Daniels, LLP

By Brad Philbrick

Brad Maurer launched his session by stating that in its

simplest form, when there is an offer plus acceptance, one

has a contract. A good contract is one that will serve and

protect both parties amicably. Brad listed fundamental

contract issues that should be included in an agreement,

which are:

Enforceability

Addressing disputes

Calculating damages

Other remedies

Statutes of limitations and repose

Alternative dispute resolution

Most time of the talk was spent discussing enforceability.

Several requirements are necessary in a contract to ensure

enforceability. One such requisite is mutuality of

obligation: both parties must be bound to perform their

obligations or the law will treat the agreement as if neither

party is bound or obligated to perform. When an offeree

and offeror exchange promises to perform, one individual

or group may not be given the complete and sole right to

cancel a contract.

Reasonable Certainty of Essential Terms implies that terms

and conditions that you use should be tailored to the

needs of your business. A good contract would include

the delivery details: who delivers, when, and where. Price-

and-payment structure is a very important essential term.

Other essential term items would include confidentiality

The Indiana Chapter


provisions, a description of services performed, rights of a

party to terminate a contract, and finally which state or

perhaps a country‟s laws apply to the contract.

The statute of frauds gives reference that some contracts

must be signed in order to have a valid document. These

contracts are typically tied to a monetary amount, a

period of time, or expectations of performance.

Brad made a strong statement when saying to us, “If you

are only going away with one point, get this: what is the

essence of the agreement?” It is important to both parties

to know what they expect, what the obligations are, and

how the met obligations are to be satisfied.

The one point no party wants to face … calculating

damages. Damages are measured in 3 different ways.

Expectation damages are what can be recovered from a

breach of contract by the nonbreaching party.

Expectation damages are not punitive; its purpose is to

place the nonbreaching party in the position that they

would have occupied had the contract been fulfilled. In

short, it would be money a medical writer expected to

earn for their work. Reliance damages are the measure of

compensation given to a person who suffered an

economic harm for acting in reliance on a party who

failed to fulfill their obligations. It is the amount of money a

medical writer spent to make a “work”, that is their

expenses. In reliance damages the aggrieved party

cannot be put in a better position had the contract been

performed. Restitution damages restore the benefit

conferred to the nonbreaching party. It is the return of the

“work”.

In short, always keep in mind 2 important aspects of a

contract. First, what is the heart of the agreement – what

are obligations of each party and what gains is each

expecting? The second important point is the ability to

enforce the agreement. Make sure the contract states

means to measure and clearly makes obligatory what is to

be provided when obligations of each party have been

served. Of course, it is a good idea to obtain legal counsel

when embarking on any important project.

The Best Of: Highlights of Local and

National AWMA News

♦ Becoming an AMWA workshop leader: Sharon

Nancekivell (administrator of AMWA‟s Education

Committee; [email protected]) is actively

recruiting credit workshop leaders and co-leaders. Susan

Krug (executive director) will soon distribute a request for

volunteers.

If you are interested, send your CV, what you want to be

(leader or co-leader), and what subject you want to teach

to Sharon, who will take your request to the Education

Committee for approval. If you propose to start a new

credit workshop, you may be asked to first teach your

subject a few times as a noncredit workshop or breakfast

roundtable. If your students like your presentation, the

committee will approve your new credit workshop.

Sharon said that she understands the frustration felt in the

past by many who tried to volunteer but got no response.

She said that problem has been corrected.

The above information was provided by David Caldwell,

our chapter‟s president and delegate to the 2012 Spring

BOD Meeting.

♦ Free publication planning event: The 5th Annual

Publication Planning Update meetings, run by

ThePublicationPlan.com with support from Adis Journals,

are free to attend for all publication planning professionals.

Name of the event:

Publication Planning Update - Access and openness - the

evolving publications landscape

The dates and locations:

• 2 October 2012 in San Francisco

• 4 October 2012 in New Jersey

• 9 October 2012 in London

This year, Liz Wager, Publications Consultant - Sideview, will

once again review topical developments in the

publication planning industry, while Amitabh Prakash,

Editor of Clinical Pharmacokinetics, will provide an

overview of open access and what to look for in making

your OA journal selection, as well as insights about the

meaning and value of publication metrics.

In addition, a speaker from the ISMPP Sunshine Task Force

will provide an update on the Sunshine Act and what this is

currently expected to mean in practice. Publication

Directors from Pharma will also provide insights from the

industry perspective.

In addition to formal presentations with Q&A, there will be

interactive panel sessions using key pads to provide instant

feedback and stimulate debate. There will also be the

opportunity to network with both presenters and peers

over a complimentary lunch.

Please see full details at

www.thepublicationplan.com/october2012.html

http://www.thepublicationplan.com/october2012.html

The Indiana Chapter


2012-2013 AMWA Indiana Chapter Board:

President: David Caldwell [email protected]

President-Elect: Barbara Lightfoot [email protected]

Secretary: Ellen Stoltzfus [email protected]

Treasurer: Phadungchom (Pam) McClelland [email protected]

Membership/Volunteer

Chair:

Barbara Lightfoot [email protected]

Program Chair: Brad Philbrick [email protected]

Program Committee: David Bell, Julie Beyrer, Esther

Brooks-Asplund, Daniela Ilijevski,

Laura Oberthur Johnson, Ellen

Stoltzfus, Jennifer Wampler

Education Chair: Laura Oberthur Johnson [email protected]

Education Committee: Barbara Lightfoot, Ellen Stoltzfus

Marketing Chair: Tara Polston [email protected]

Newsletter Editor: Qing Zhou [email protected]

Newsletter Committee: Svetlana (Lana) Dominguez, Ellen

Stoltzfus

Social Media Manager: Kristin Bullok [email protected]

Past President: Anne Wolka [email protected]

Contact any Board member with questions or ideas for the chapter.

About AMWA:

The American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) is a national organization for writers, editors, and other professionals in medicine and

science. The association was founded in 1940 and has regional chapters throughout the United States and Canada and members in 30

other countries throughout the world. Through an extensive educational program, various publications, and unparalleled opportunities for

networking, AMWA encourages and enables its members to extend their professional expertise.

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