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Period: 6000 BCE to 30 BCE
The Beginning of Medical Writing
Medical writing dates back to Antiquity, normally defined as the period before the Middle Ages. In fact, ancient Egyptians believe the God Thoth was the inventor of writing between 6000-30 BC. By 400 BC written principles of medicine were abstracted by Hippocrates. Then came the Roman, Galen who complied with the writings concerning medicince around 150 BC -
400 BCE
Metrodora
Metrodora wrote a medical text called On the Diseases and Cures of Women that outlines some of the gynecological methods still in use today. It is considered to be the oldest surviving medical works written by a woman. https://www.medicaldaily.com/most-influential-women-medicine-past-present-270560 -
Period: to
Late Modern English Medical Texts or Vernacularization
A modern approach to medicine with "inquiry as a thought style" Medical texts were translated from Latin unto the vernacular, the more common terms. This made it easier for the everyday population to understand medical knowledge, not just scholars or physicians. -
New England Journal of Medicine
The oldest continuously published medical journal is established in 1812, this journal helped establish the blind peer review as a requirement for publication. -
Louis Pasteur
Adds the methods section to scientific articles, precursor to IMRAD Format, prior to that most research papers were written in the letter-style format.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9139447 -
Rebecca Crumpler
Dr. Rebecca Crumpler's 'Book of Medical Discourses' is one of the very first medical publications by an African American. https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_73.html -
American Medical Writers Association
Was founded to promote excellence in medical communication -
Period: to
Journal of the American Medical Association
AMA Manual of Style published began to routinely include abstracts with its articles -
American National Standards Institute
Establishes IMRAD as the standard for reporting research or introduction, methods, results, and discussion format. This led Archibald Cochrane to publish his works to stress the importance of using evidence from randomized controlled trials.
https://ansi.org/ -
Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts
submitted by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (the Vancouver Group) The Uniform Requirements state the ethical principles in the conduct and reporting of research and provide recommendations relating to specific elements of editing and writing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3142758/ -
Annals of Internal Medicine
Introduced the structured abstract which is an abstract with distinct, labeled sections (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion) for comprehension
Annals of Internal Medicine is an academic medical journal published by the American College of Physicians.
https://www.acpjournals.org/ -
PubMed
Started by the NCBI to provide access to biomedical and genomic information. PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez system of information retrieval
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ -
CONSORT
Or the Consolidated Standards for Reporting Trials statement was set for the standard for reporting randomized controlled trials.
The main product of CONSORT is the CONSORT Statement, which is an evidence-based, minimum set of recommendations for reporting randomized trials. It offers a standard way for authors to prepare reports of trial findings, facilitating their complete and transparent reporting, and aiding their critical appraisal and interpretation.
http://www.consort-statement.org/ -
Creative Commons and Public Library of Science
Founded to legally share knowledge and creativity and speed progress in science and medicine. Also called the Open Access thought-style.
Which is peer-reviewed literature that is freely available without subscription or price barriers, literature is immediately released in open access format, and. published material can be re-used without obtaining permission as long as a correct citation to the original publication is given
https://creativecommons.org/2005/09/01/plos/ -
Future of Medical Writers/Communicators
The United States medical writing market stood at a value of around USD 0.9 billion in 2021. The market is further expected to grow in the forecast period of 2022-2027 at a CAGR of 10.0% to reach USD 1.5 billion by 2027.
https://www.expertmarketresearch.com/reports/united-states-medical-writing-market