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Health Writing Essentials

Learn how to read medical studies so you can pitch fresh stories

Course is closed.
Health Writing Essentials

WHEN Thursday, May 10, 6:30-9:30 pm

WHERE mediabistro.com, 494 Broadway (Spring & Broome), New York, NY 10012

DIRECTIONS subway directions, map

PRICE
$65 ($50 for )
more info

Course Details

These days, you can't walk by a newsstand without seeing a story about health and medicine on a prominent magazine's cover. From The New Yorker to Glamour, there's never been more interest in medical topics. But how do you establish yourself in this competitive market? How do you get fresh story ideas? How do you find credible sources?

Sound scary? It isn't. The basic premise is that topics like weight loss, smoking cessation, and illnesses have been covered...well, to death. But there are always new studies coming out. And when those studies come out, you can pitch new trends and discoveries to editors before the editors themselves know about them. And there's nothing a men's or women's magazine editor loves more than a fresh twist on a health topic. Once you learn how to find studies, translate them out of medical jargon, you'll see how easy it is to write the article. For one, you already have your quotable experts...the people who did the study!

In this seminar, you can expect to learn:
  • How to find reliable medical experts and information
  • How to find 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 who to pitch it to

Instructor Bio

Ivan Oransky's Courses

No courses available at this time.

Ivan Oransky
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

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