The following resources have been identified as being relevant to professionals involved in medical publishing, publication planning, and medical writing. We welcome contributions (please contact us).

Medical writing and design support for medical publication professionals

Medical writing support for your publications and presentations
Aspire Scientific is a medical writing agency that ethically supports industry professionals with the development of medical publications and medical affairs deliverables. Aspire Scientific is led by experienced scientific directors with a minimum of 10 years’ experience, and supported by MSc and/or PhD-educated writers at the forefront of their specialist fields.

Design support for your publications and presentations
Sparked into life kindly designed and provided The Publication Plan logo. They are a creative group with many years of combined experience in both digital and traditional media for the healthcare communications sector, and provide a broad range of targeted services from identity and theming through to campaigns and brand communication.

Associations, groups, initiatives and societies

AllTrials Campaign
The AllTrials campaign was launched in January 2013 and calls for all past and present clinical trials to be registered and their results reported. It is an initiative of Ben Goldacre, BMJ, Centre for Evidence-based Medicine, Cochrane Collaboration, James Lind Initiative, PLOS and Sense about Science and is being led in the US by Sense About Science USA, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice.

American Medical Writers Association (AMWA)
AMWA provides extensive continuing education activities, including a Certificate Program, for professionals in medical communication via its conferences and local meetings. It also runs a quarterly journal.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
COPE was founded in 1997 with the objective of providing a ‘sounding board for editors who were struggling with how best to deal with possible breaches in research and publication ethics’. It provides support for journal editors in dealing with ethical problems in publication. Its website provides guidelines and a code of conduct, as well details of cases concerning publication ethics reported to COPE.

Council of Science Editors (CSE)
The CSE (formerly the Council of Biology Editors) was founded in 1957 by the National Science Foundation and the American Institute of Biological Sciences. Its mission statement is ‘CSE’s mission is to promote excellence in the communication of scientific information. CSE’s purpose is to serve members in the scientific, scientific publishing, and information science communities by fostering networking, education, discussion, and exchange and to be an authoritative resource on current and emerging issues in the communication of scientific information’.

EQUATOR Network
The EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) Network is an international initiative that seeks to improve the reliability and value of published health research literature by promoting transparent and accurate reporting and wider use of robust reporting guidelines. It is the first coordinated attempt to tackle the problems of inadequate reporting systematically and on a global scale; it advances the work done by individual groups over the last 15 years.

European Association of Science Editors (EASE)
An internationally oriented community of individuals from diverse backgrounds, linguistic traditions and professional experience who share an interest in science communication, writing and editing.

European Medical Writers Association (EMWA)
EMWA offers training and networking opportunities to its members who are mainly medical writers and medical editors. It produces a regular magazine and holds two educational conferences a year, at which members can gain professional development credits by attending workshops and successfully completing post-workshop assessments.

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
This highly influential group consists of representatives from a number of general medical journals including The Lancet, BMJ, NEJM and others (see website for a full list). Their key activities include the development of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals and statements on registration of clinical trials.

International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP)
ISMPP is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to support medical publication professionals through education and advocacy. It has members from all sectors of medical publishing, and key benefits of membership include the annual meeting and web-based seminars on a range of topics. ISMPP also has several committees focusing on issues relevant to medical publication professionals, including Ethics, Standards and Best Practices, Education and others.

MedComms Networking
This global initiative facilitates networking and dialogue amongst individuals working in and around the pharmaceutical industry and MedComms, focussing on specialist medical education, medical communications and medical publishing activities. MedComms Networking started in 2007 as a primarily UK-based community of MedComms agency specialists but has since evolved to ecompass a much broader remit.

Medical Affairs Professional Society (MAPS)
MAPS is the premier non-profit global society of Medical Affairs professionals across a spectrum of fields, experience, and locales. The mission of MAPS is to advance the Medical Affairs profession and increase its impact across the Life Sciences industry by promoting excellence across Medical Affairs functions, developing guidelines to support industry standards and best practices, fostering advocacy for Medical Affairs position, and providing education and encouraging professional collaborations that support the
practice of Medical Affairs.

Medical Publishing Insights and Practices (MPIP) Initiative
The MPIP Initiative was founded in 2008 by members of the pharmaceutical industry and the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) to elevate trust, transparency, and integrity in publishing industry-sponsored studies. The major goal of MPIP is to promote more effective partnership between sponsors and journals to raise standards in medical publishing and expand access to research results.

World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
Organisation consisting of editors of biomedical journals from around the world. It has developed a number of policy statements and useful resources which it provides freely on its website.

Key guidelines relating to medical publications

EQUATOR Wizard
The EQUATOR Network provides this tool for selecting the correct reporting guideline  to help you plan and report your research.

CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials)
The CONSORT statement provides recommendations for reporting randomised, controlled trials, including a 22-item checklist and a flowchart showing the progress of study subjects through the trial. Extensions of the CONSORT statement for different trial designs, herbal and non-pharmacological interventions, harms and abstracts are also available on the website. The CONSORT group has also produced other guidelines, including ASSERT to help with monitoring of clinical trials by ethics committees and QUORUM for the reporting of meta-analyses (to find these on the CONSORT website, click on the Resources tab followed by a link on the left to Related guidelines and initiatives).

Good Practice for Conference Abstracts and Presentations (GPCAP) recommendations
The GPCAP recommendations address the specific challenges of developing abstracts and presentations for academic conferences. The recommendations cover authorship and contributorship; transparency; development, review and approval of abstracts and presentations; guidance on re-presentation of data (encore abstracts); copyright considerations, and appropriate citation of conference presentations. The recommendations are designed to help industry professionals, authors and conference organisers to improve consistency, transparency and integrity of publications submitted to conferences worldwide.

Good Publication Practice (GPP3) guidelines
The GPP3 guidelines provide recommendations for individuals and organisations that contribute to the publication of research results sponsored or supported by pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostics, and biotechnology companies. The recommendations are designed to help individuals and organisations maintain ethical and transparent publication practices and comply with legal and regulatory requirements. These recommendations cover publications in peer-reviewed journals and presentations (oral or poster) at scientific congresses. The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) has also set up a page dedicated to the guidelines, which can be found here: http://www.ismpp.org/GPP3.

PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses)
PRISMA is an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. PRISMA focuses on the reporting of reviews evaluating randomised trials, but can also be used as a basis for reporting systematic reviews of other types of research, particularly evaluations of interventions.

STROBE (STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology)
STROBE is an international, collaborative initiative of epidemiologists, methodologists, statisticians, researchers and journal editors involved in the conduct and dissemination of observational studies. The STROBE checklist specifies items that should be included in articles reporting observational research.

Upcoming events

20^th Annual Meeting of ISMPP

The 20^th Annual Meeting of ISMPP (International Society for Medical Publication Professionals) will be April 29 – May 1 in Washington, DC. The three-day program will center on the meeting theme, Storytelling: Its Art and Power. This is a must-attend conference to learn about the latest medical publication and communication practices!

• Artificial Intelligence/ChatGPT
• Omnichannel
• Plain Language Summaries
• Best Practices
• Data Visualisation
• Publication Planning
• Digital Extenders
• Metrics and Analytics

Meeting Registration is open until April 12th! Explore the meeting on LinkedIn and X: #ISMPPAnnual2024

Other resources for medical publication professionals

Benefits associated with professional medical writing
In a study published in BMJ Open, declared professional medical writing support was associated with more complete reporting of clinical trial results and higher quality of written English. Medical writing support may play an important role in raising the quality of clinical trial reporting.

ClinicalTrials.gov
ClinicalTrials.gov is a clinical trial registry provided by the US National Institutes of Health. Recent legislation means that trials of all drugs to be submitted to the FDA must be registered on this site. From September 2008, results of the trials must also be posted on the site. Other clinical trial registries are offered by the World Health Organization, the European Medicines Agency, and the ISRCTN.

Enhanced Publication Options Navigator
The Enhanced Publication Options Navigator is an easy-to-use resource developed by MPIP. The tool aims to help authors and publication professionals find detailed information on options for open access publishing, enhanced publication content and plain language summaries offered by different journals, and can be searched by journal, therapeutic area or publisher.

ISMPP Authorship Algorithm Tool
The ISMPP Authorship Algorithm Tool is a resource designed to help better determine contributions to criterion 1 of the ICMJE Recommendations for Authorship, providing a web-based mechanism for scoring and weighting author contributions.