Emily Seminary, PhD, is an Associate Medical Writing Document Manager at Astellas Pharma, a pharmaceutical research company. During graduate school at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Emily realized that she enjoyed the writing aspect of research and decided to pursue science writing as a career. Now as a science writer, she gets the best of both worlds - being involved in the research process through science communication. Emily is the recipient of many awards including the Annual Graduate School Poster Session Award Winner in 2017 and the Graduate Student Symposium Poster Award Winner in 2019. She is also a member of American Medical Writers Association.

Can you describe your academic and professional background? What path led you to pursue this field?

I have a BA in Biochemistry and French from Augustana College in Illinois and a PhD in Cellular and Developmental Biology from the Medical College of Wisconsin. I also did a short postdoc in my grad lab while I was navigating the transition from academia to medical writing. I entered grad school intending to never leave the bench, but like many grad students I realized that it wasn’t the right fit for me long term, so I started looking into nonacademic options. I was initially drawn to medical writing because it allowed me to stay close to the research process, but I no longer needed to be the one performing the experiments. I’m also able to enjoy more consistent working hours and flexibility since I can in theory work anywhere I have my laptop and WiFi.

How did you find this particular position, and what was the hiring process like? Is there a typical structure for this in your field?

I was referred to this particular position by a friend who used to be a postdoc at MCW before starting her own medical writing career at Astellas. The hiring process involved a couple of phone interviews before an onsite interview. This seems to be fairly common based on other interviews I went through.

Can you tell us about your current responsibilities? What is a typical day or week like in your role?

As a medical writer at a pharmaceutical company, my main responsibilities are to draft high-quality regulatory documents that will be submitted to health agencies. A typical day involves emails, meetings, and a lot of writing/formatting the documents. It requires a lot of attention to detail and people skills since you’re working within a team.

What do you enjoy about your current job and work environment?

For me, I think medical writing strikes a great balance between consistency and variety.  I’m able to anticipate what my days/weeks will look like so I can plan accordingly, but every document, product, and team is a little bit different so it’s not monotonous. 

I also love the company I work for and the people I work with.  Everyone is very friendly and helpful, so as someone new to both the company and the job in general, I’ve been well supported and welcomed.

What are some of the challenging aspects of your job? Is there anything you wish you had known about your job or industry before joining?

This is very much a desk job, which in general doesn’t bother me, but it can be difficult to get up and move around sometimes. This is especially true as I’ve been working from home since March due to COVID-19, so I am not walking around the office to get my coffee and go to meetings and such anymore.

Do you have any professional plans for the future? What are some future career paths that could open up for someone in your position, 5-10 years down the road?

I would like to continue to grow in my job by taking on more managerial responsibilities.  I would also like to help mentor new team members when I’m not the new kid anymore.  Mentoring/training rotation students was something I really enjoyed in grad school, so I’d love to be able to do it again once I feel more established. 

What activities, internships, or organizations would you recommend someone get involved with to help them break into this field?

There are a number of different types of medical writing you can do (freelancing, grant writing, communications, regulatory, etc), so if this is something that sounds interesting I would recommend getting as much writing experience as you possibly can.  I was lucky enough to have a PI that was supportive of me pursuing a nonacademic career, so when she was invited to contribute to a review article she asked if I wanted to spearhead our labs portion.  That was a great experience for me because it really solidified that I enjoyed writing and wanted to pursue this as a career.  You can also get writing experience by contributing to blogs or starting your own.  Any writing experience where you can talk about how you took the lead will definitely help, even if it’s a different subject or type of writing than the job you are applying for. 

There is also the American Medical Writers Association which has information on medical writing and networking opportunities.  I am currently a member of AMWA after first joining in grad school.  What is really nice about this group is that there are smaller, regional chapters of AMWA that have their own conferences that any member can go to.  Shortly after my defense I went to one hoping to network and ran into an old friend from high school, a friend who I now work with, and I met my now boss.  I found the conference to be very informative and the networking opportunities were great, so I thought it was totally worth it.

Is it common for people in your field to have a scientific/academic background (i.e. have PhDs)? Can you think of any advantages or disadvantages someone with a PhD might experience while pursuing or working in your field?

It’s extremely common for people to have PhDs in medical writing. Having an academic background means that you can be trusted to understand the more technical material that you need to work with, or at the very least know where to find the resources to help you understand it. I think it also prepares you for the twists and turns that inevitably pop up in the process. We’ve all had experiments that get unexpectedly delayed or pushed up, and this job is no different.

Do you have any final words of advice for those navigating these career questions? Is there anything you would have done differently given what you know now?

I know everyone says this and it’s painful to do, but networking is really important, especially when you’re transitioning away from academia.  Strictly speaking, I wasn’t “qualified” for most of the regulatory medical writing jobs when I was applying because I had no experience with regulatory documents.  But of course, you can’t get experience with regulatory documents unless you’ve worked as a medical writer.  It’s frustrating.  Having a good cover letter definitely helps, but having someone vouch for you and say that you can do the job if you get the chance is even better.  So any networking opportunity you can find I would really recommend doing.

Also keep in mind that you’re never going to fit 100% of the job requirements, so don’t let that prevent you from applying anyway.  Use your cover letter to point to the skills you do have and how they’re relevant to what you’re applying for.  With a PhD, you’re a highly skilled, highly qualified person, don’t let the fact that you don’t have the specific industry experience convince you that you’re not.

Finally, don’t get discouraged when you don’t get the first job or it takes a while.  I sent out dozens of applications and it was at least 7 months from the first application to accepting my current role, and I think that was on the quicker side of things.  It takes time, but I’m very happy where I ended up so it was worth it.

*Opinions expressed are my own and do not express the views or opinions of Astellas.