As a medical writer, it’s essential that you effectively articulate scientific breakthroughs to enable healthcare providers, regulators, payers, and patients to understand the value of medicines. This means the correct interpretation and explanation of clinical data is essential.
When I was looking to break into medical writing over 6 years ago, one of the most challenging parts was learning the clinical jargon needed for my writing practice. In particular the jargon used when describing clinical efficacy and safety data.
In fact, I soon learnt that clinical safety is a highly standardized subject, which I needed to get my head around to work as a professional medical writer. And to be honest this took me a bit of time.
So to fast track your understanding, we’ve prepared a short video covering this information:
Specifically, the safety jargon covered includes what is an/a:
- Adverse event (AE)
- Adverse drug reaction (ADR)
- Serious AE vs severe AE
- Expected AE vs Unexpected AE
- Suspected unexpected adverse reaction (SUSAR)
Hopefully, this will provide a glossary that will help you understand key words and phrases frequently used to describe safety data in clinical trials.