Medical writing involves writing scientific documents of different types which include regulatory and research related documents, disease or drug-related educational and promotional literature, publication articles like journal manuscripts and abstracts, content for healthcare websites, health-related magazines or news articles. The scientific information in these documents needs to be presented to suit the level of understanding of the target audience, namely, patients or general public, physicians or the regulators.

A professional medical writer is someone who has an adequate understanding of medical, scientific and health terms and concepts, and the skills to translate such information into a variety of formats for different audiences. Medical writers come from various backgrounds and can find work in a variety of fields.

Medical writers require an understanding of the medical concepts and terminology, knowledge of relevant guidelines as regards the structure and contents of specific documents, and good writing skills. They also need to be familiar with searching medical literature, understanding and presenting research data, the document review process, and editing and publishing requirements.