DURATION/TIME 8 weeks September 20 - November 8 Online chats: Wednesdays, 9-10 pm EST LEVEL  Intermediate/advanced ONLINE CLASS INFO See our eClasses info page.  PRICE $499 ($475 for ) more info

Course Details

If you want to get into the lucrative and growing health and medical writing market, this is the course for you. How do you establish yourself in this field and get a piece of the (cholesterol-free) pie? How do you dig up story ideas? Where do you find sources and how do you translate their science-talk into readable English? Or, if you're writing for trade publications, how do you stay ahead of the curve and not talk down to your readers? From understanding the lingo to being the first to discover a medical study, you'll spend an intense eight weeks leaning how to write about medicine and health, and, if you keep up with assignments, you'll produce at least two salable pieces.

• How to find reliable medical experts and information, and patient anecdotes  
• What major terms mean, and where to find definitions and background
• How to interpret a medical study: a crash course in biostatistics
• How to pitch a medical story, and to whom (specific editors at trade and consumer publications)
• How to cover medical controversies
• How to put it all together into various types of pieces: daily news, features, longer magazine pieces

• Experienced non-specialist writers who want to add health and medical writing to their portfolio
• Doctors or scientists who've done some writing and want to freelance
• Medical writers who want to improve their skills

Admission requirements:
Please submit a letter of interest (including a brief work history) and a non-fiction writing sample (less than 2,000 words).

• Instructors post lectures once a week. You can read them online, print them, or download them at your convenience.
• Students post completed assignments for feedback and discussion by the instructor and class.
• Weekly chats allow your class to get together via instant message. Transcripts are available for review if you can't attend. 
• Technical support is available from mediabistro staff.

Instructor Bio

Ivan Oransky's Courses

Ivan Oransky, MD, is the deputy editor of The Scientist. He has served as editor in chief of Pulse, the medical student section of the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) and of Praxis Post (an online magazine of medicine and culture named a finalist in the "General Excellence, Independent" category of the 2001 Online Journalism Awards). Author or co-author of four books, including The Common Symptom Answer Guide (McGraw-Hill, 2004), he has written for publications including the Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, Fitness, The Forward, The Lancet, The New Republic, The New York Sun, Salon, Slate, U.S. News and World Report, and USA Today, and has served as an editor at Reuters Health information. He received his BA at Harvard and his MD from NYU, and completed an internship at Yale. In 2002, he was elected to the board of directors of the Association of Health Care Journalists.

Testimonials

I would absolutely recommend this class (eClass: Health and Medical Writing Boot Camp) to anyone who was interested in getting into health and medical writing. I think it gives you great insight into the field and provides you with good practice and feedback from a very qualified instructor. -- Leena Gupta, former student