Clinician’s Guide to Medical Writing

Product Details
Book Publisher: Springer (28 October, 2004)
ISBN: 0387222499
Book author: Robert B. Taylor
Amazon Rating: 5.0

Book Description:
This book is for any clinician who wants to write. It is for the physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner who sees patients and also wants to contribute to the medical literature. It is for the assistant professor aspiring to promotion and the clinician in private practice seeking the personal enrichment that writing can bring. Loaded with practical advice and real-world examples, this text will benefit readers who are new to medical writing and those who have authored a few articles or chapters and want to improve their abilities.

Readers relate to this book because it is written by someone who has been in their shoes. Dr. Robert B. Taylor is a distinguished leader in the field of family medicine and is the editor of Springer-Verlag’s best-selling books, Family Medicine, 6/e, and Fundamentals of Family Medicine, 3/e. Unlike the authors of many other writing books who have little experience outside of academia or publishing, writing is Dr. Taylor’s avocation instead of the focus of his career. Dr. Taylor brings more than 14 years in private practice and 26 years in academic medicine. He has written every type of document covered in this text: review articles, editorials, case reports, letters to the editor, book reviews, book chapters, reference books, research protocols, grant proposals, and clinical study reports.

Most of Dr. Taylor’s works have been published, but not all. In the process of producing his impressive curriculum vitae, Dr. Taylor has made all of the errors that frustrate fellow clinician-writers. Over the years, he has jumbled spelling, mixed metaphors, gotten lost in his own outline, written on unimportant topics, and submitted to inappropriate journals. But along the way, he has successfully published 18 medical books and several hundred papers. Dr. Taylor wrote this book to share what he has learned—what works and what doesn’t in medical writing.

The purpose of this book is to show clinicians how to translate observations and ideas from their practices into written form and eventually into print. To achieve this, Dr. Taylor highlights four goals for the clinician-writer. Clinicians seeking publication must:

Understand more about the art of medical writing, including motivation, conceptualization, mechanics, and frustrations.

Discover how to write for the different models found in the medical literature, including review articles, case reports, editorials, research papers, book chapters, and more.

Learn how to get a manuscript published.

Recognize that writing can be fun.

The book’s twelve chapters begin by discussing basic concepts in medical writing and fundamental skills before outlining models ranging from the review article to the grant proposal. Throughout, Dr. Taylor attempts to follow the time-honored principle of supporting theory with examples, some from actual published materials and some created to help the reader understand key principles.