Write It Right Before You Cite
Journal supplements are a staple in the typical medical writer’s list of service offerings. In case you’re not familiar with them, a journal supplement is a special issue produced by a publisher in addition to its regular weekly, biweekly, or monthly issues, and usually focuses on a single specific topic. For example, the Journal of Infectious Diseases published a supplement in May 2008 on “
Significant Challenges Facing HIV Practitioners.” Sometimes, supplements are written by medical writers who work under contract with the publisher. But often, they are written by medical writers who work for, or who freelance for, medical education companies or medical communications companies in conjunction with a pharmaceutical company or device manufacturer.
In June 2008, the
US Library of Medicine announced that supplements sponsored by profit-making organizations or organizations representing for-profit interests must include specific disclosure information for the supplement to be approved for indexing in MEDLINE by the NLM’s Literature Selection Technical Review Committee. The disclosures must specifically include and address any financial relationships the authors and/or guest editors have with the sponsor as well as any interests the sponsor represents, and any financial interests the authors have in any for-profit product that is discussed or implied in the supplement and any articles within the supplement. The NLM notes that this same policy may be applied to special sections or groups of articles that appear within a regularly numbered issue of a medical journal if outside sponsorship, guest editorship, or a proprietary product is involved.
What does this mean to us medical writers? If you want to be able to include a MEDLINE citation of a journal supplement or group of articles you have written in your resume or CV, and it fits the sponsorship or for-profit interest parameters noted above, you must be sure to write the manuscript right from the beginning! Include the proper author and/or guest editor disclosures as stipulated in the new NLM policy statement. Not only will your resume or CV benefit from adherence to this policy, your clients will appreciate it too, and the medical literature will benefit from the open and honest disclosure of potential conflicts of interest that is at the heart of the ethical practice of medical communication.
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