THE A-Z OF MEDICAL WRITING

Foreword:
   This book has not been written to be read – at least in the usual sense of starting at the beginning, ploughing on to the end, and then remembering (at best) one or two points. I have written it for a completely different purpose, which has come from my experiences over the past 10 years working with doctors and other health professionals to sort out a wide range of writing problems. 

   It is clear that they face several difficulties when it comes to writing. They are torn between the pressure to communicate with patients on the one hand, and meet the expectations of their peers for horrendously prolix prose on the other. Although they will have had no formal training on writing since they were 16, they will be expected to publish in high status journals if they are to advance in their careers. Writing cultures have grown up that are, frankly, destructive of effective communication and individual talent. And of course, as trained doctors rather than trained writers, they have more useful things to do anyway. 

   So this is not another reference book laying down rules on grammar, style, or journalology, or the presentation of statistics or the ethics of publication, even though I stray into these areas from time to time. What this book sets out to do is to give support, encouragement, and informed advice, so that people who have found writing hard will somehow find it less hard. Acting on the experience of training courses, I have chosen a large number of topics, which are arranged alphabetically, from 
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