Out of the many industries in which I’ve worked, writing for medical practitioners was the most challenging and also the most rewarding. The reasons may not be what you think.
Medical practitioners need to show online presence and promote their services, just like any other business. But their message is problematic. How do you promote something that’s necessary, but people never want to need? Like cataract surgery.
There are excellent medical writers to fill a doctor’s website with professional medical information. There are also excellent marketing writers who can craft engaging content.
Combining both is intensely demanding. Creating communication that will bridge the gaps between practitioner and patient can prove to be fiercely complex. And it's hard to find good medical writers, who are also good marketing writers.
What’s the Big Gap?
Imagine yourself in the position of the practitioner. Maybe you are an optometrist, a dentist, or a psychiatrist. Now think of the patient and compare.
Knowledge gap Medicine is a science, and you as the practitioners, are an expert in your field. Not so your customers, who receive the service. The science behind what makes them hurt or what will make the hurt go away is not very interesting to them.
Language gap Medicine has its own scientific language, foreign to the average patient. If you’re the doctor, you communicate comfortably in a language your customers can’t understand. The only time patients find themselves faced with medical terms is when there’s something physically wrong with them.
Expectation gap Medical practices are businesses. You naturally expect to make money off of what you offer. If you were the patient, you weren’t looking for affordable deals, but a solution for discomfort or suffering. You’d understand it costs money, but the main expectation would be to get better, no matter what.
The content on a practitioner's website needs to arch across these almost contradictory disparities.
Writers in a B2B environment have it easier. It's all business. Suppliers and customers speak the same language and have a similar knowledge level. A content writer who specializes in the field can produce product pages, white papers, and case studies, and they will work.
But when marketing to the patient directly, a purely medical content writer will overwhelm the reader.
What Specific Skills Does the Writer Need?
To make medical content relatable to someone who knows nothing about medicine and won’t understand the terms that explain it, the writer needs a variety of complex skills.
The writer needs advanced knowledge in the specific medical field.
The writer must be proficient in a particular scientific language.
The writer has to translate highly scientific language into simple language understandable for the average person.
The writer needs to identify what’s relevant for the reader, build the content around that, and leave out whatever isn’t interesting without obscuring the meaning.
The writer must filter out complex, in-depth explanations and still provide a complete, comprehensible picture of a medical condition, including symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment options.
The writer has to be aware of any regulations that may apply to advertising medical or pharmaceutical content and work around them.
Why Doctors Prefer Medical Content over Marketing Content
Many practitioners fear they may sound unprofessional if they compromise the medical jargon. Doctors do not want their websites to appear like a commercial site, which would hurt their credibility.
And they are right. Doctor's websites should demonstrate professionalism and provide medical content. People search for medical information on the net; they have no time to visit the doctor unless absolutely necessary. Patients do not want to rely on what one doctor tells them about their condition, medication, or a device they suggest. They search for additional information and cross-references.
The demand for understandable medical content exists. People want to understand what is going on in their bodies and what they can do about it. That's a big opportunity for practice owners, but also a challenge.
But there’s another critical aspect we haven’t mentioned yet: The delicate emotions of the patients. People seeking medical services are often psychologically vulnerable.
How Does Emotion Fit In?
Patients feel insecure or even fearful. They struggle with many more questions than they can find answers for, and physical discomfort makes it worse. Quality of life, mobility, health, or life itself may be at risk. In addition to needing medical help, they are often hypersensitive and irritable.
Many professionals prefer to stick to the purely scientific approach to avoid upsetting the reader and not raise unrealistic expectations. That's why there's a lot of good medical content on the internet written by good medical writers.
However, in many cases, these texts do nothing to touch the reader. All they do is communicate information. Practice owners don't run NGOs. They need to promote the business, which can't be done with dry theoretical, indifferent content.
In my next post "Writing About People's Health? Show Compassion!" I'll reveal the unique challenges for a marketing writer and give an example of how to deal with them.
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