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Medical ReportingLearning To Be a Medical Journalist‘If you already are a skilled reporter and writer, the transition to medicaljournalism should be relatively easy.’By Thomas LindenTalk to 10 medical journalists andyou’ll find 10 different careerpaths. Common to most medicalreporters is a love for writing and adeep interest in medicine and science.But how does someone prepare for acareer in this field, a hybrid of scienceand art?It’s really the same problem that thelate and great physician essayist LewisThomas wrote about in 1978 for TheNew England Journal of Medicine. Onlythen Thomas was talking about premedicalstudents. As he noted in hisessay, “How to Fix the Premedical Curriculum,”the problem with many premedicalstudents (and, dare I say, manydoctors) is that they don’t study enoughliterature, language and history.Thomas’s proposal was to study classicalGreek as “the centerpiece of undergraduateeducation …. The capacity toread Homer’s language closely enoughto sense the terrifying poetry in someof the lines could serve as a shrewd testfor the qualities of mind and characterneeded in a physician.”Now I’m not proposing that aspiringmedical journalists study Homer,although a little poetry can go a longway in a story. The theme here is thatthe best way to prepare for a career inmedical journalism (as Thomas proposedfor medicine) is to gain an appreciationfor the poetry of language.So if you are a college student and wantto be a medical journalist, take coursesin the humanities (English, literature,foreign languages, history) as well asbasic science courses in biology, chemistry,genetics and physics. The bestpreparation to be a journalist—any kindof journalist—is to read voraciouslyand write prolifically. Subscribe to atleast one newspaper (in addition tothe five you follow on the Web). Reada variety of magazines. If you don’thave a pile of reading material at yourbedside, ask yourself if you really wantto be a journalist. Oh yes, and readbooks. Books about medicine and scienceare good, but don’t limit yourselfto that field. Finally, be sure you havean English and a medical dictionary (Iprefer Stedman’s) handy at all times.Words are the clay you work with, sochoose them carefully.Beyond words lies knowledge. Anunderstanding of medical science iswhat separates medical journalists fromgeneral assignment reporters. “At itsbest, journalism mediates between theworlds of expertise and general knowledge,”Lee C. Bollinger, president ofColumbia University, wrote in his 2003Journalism Task Force Statement. “Todo that well—to write for the presentand to weave in broader meaning—isremarkably difficult. A necessary elementis substantive knowledge, thekind of knowledge you cannot justpick up in the course of doing a story.”What Bollinger is saying—and Iagree—is that to really own the medicalbeat, you need to know the subjectmatter. You don’t need to be a scientistor a doctor, but you do need to understandhow scientists think and be ableto translate their jargon and their ideasinto simple English.So let’s jump ahead. You’re alreadya journalist, maybe a general assignmentreporter with an interest in medicineand science. Or a health care providerwho feels your creative energiesare stifled by the tedium of daily practice.In other words, you’re thinkingabout becoming a medical journalist.The first question you might ask iswhether to pursue post-graduate medicaljournalism training. The answer is,“It depends.” If you’re a general assignmentreporter with no background inthe sciences, then a master’s course ofstudy in medical journalism might makesense. If you’re in the health care fieldwith no prior journalistic experience,then you’ll need to learn how to writefor the popular media. The advantagehere lies with the journalist. If youalready are a skilled reporter and writer,the transition to medical journalismshould be relatively easy. Enrolling in amedical journalism program makessense if you want to use the opportunityto deepen your background inhealth sciences and increase yourknowledge of public health.If you’re already in the health carefield and want to retool, that’s a lotmore difficult, especially if you’ve hadlimited writing or reporting experience.If you’re a doctor or nurse andfantasize about becoming the next LarryAltman or Atul Gawande, then startwriting. Take a journalism course atyour local community college or university.Submit articles to your localnewspaper. Or apprentice yourself to aproducer or reporter at your local televisionstation. The bottom line is that ifyou’re a health care provider with littlereporting experience then you mustdevelop your journalistic skills. There’sno substitute for hours spent in thefield gathering information, interviewingsources, and writing good copy.Medical JournalismProgramsFor some individuals, matriculating ata graduate-level medical journalismprogram is the way to go. In our master’sprogram at the University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill, about half ofthe entering students have worked as afull-time newspaper reporter orfreelance magazine writer for at leastone or more years after college. A fewstudents have entered without formal66 Nieman Reports / Summer 2003
Medical ReportingMedical Journalism TrainingMedical Journalism Program at theUniversity of North Carolina at ChapelHill, School of Journalism and MassCommunication. As one of the nation’sfirst master’s programs in medical journalism,the two-year experience emphasizeswriting skills for print andbroadcast media. Thomas Linden, M.D.,a former medical journalist, is directorof the program. Additional informationis at www.jomc.unc.edu/medicaljournalism.The Knight Center for Scienceand Medical Journalism at BostonUniversity, College of Communication,is supported by the John S. and JamesL. Knight Foundation. There is a threesemestermaster’s degree program inscience journalism that prepares journalistsfor careers in science, medicaland public health reporting, and variousprograms for mid-career journalists.The center is codirected by EllenRuppel Shell and Douglass Starr. Additionalinformation can be found atwww.bu.edu/com/jo/science.Health Journalism Program atUniversity of Minnesota, School of Journalismand Mass Communication andSchool of Public Health. This is theonly program in the country that balancesstudy across the disciplines ofjournalism and public health. The oneyearmaster’s program covers a broadspectrum of medical topics, includingcoverage of health policy issues, healtheconomics, and medical news ethics.Additional information can be found atwww.healthjournalism.umn.edu.New York University’s Departmentof Journalism offers “MedicalWriting” as a course. Other journalismprograms—at Columbia University,Texas A&M, Iowa University, Universityof California-Berkeley, Arizona StateUniversity, Northwestern University,and Purdue University—also haveclasses on various aspects of medicalreporting and writing. Additional informationcan be found at http://murrow.journalism.wisc.edu/dsc. ■journalism education or reporting experience.About half of the studentshave majored in a science-related field.Interestingly, I have received severalinquiries from physicians who want toeither switch careers or pursue a combinedcareer in medicine and medicaljournalism. So far, none has applied.If you have some writing experienceand decide to pursue a post-graduateprogram, what should you look for?First, make sure the people who willteach you have worked in the field.Second, talk to enrolled students andask them what they’re learning. If theydon’t mention “writing” in the first fewsentences, then look elsewhere. As forthe course curriculum, make sure you’llhave lots of writing practice with teacherswho are willing and available tocritique your work. Be sure coursestrain you to write for a variety of mediaincluding print, broadcast (televisionand radio), and the Web. Inquirewhether the program offers courses inpublic health (including epidemiology)so you’ll know how to interpret andevaluate medical studies and put researchfindings in context. Check outthe syllabi for the medical journalismcourses offered. Make sure you’ll readsome of the best writers in the field—Oliver Sacks, Lewis Thomas, RandyShilts, Jon Franklin, and Laurie Garrett,to name just a few.If you’re broadcast-oriented, makesure your program offers courses inprint journalism. If you’re print-oriented,be sure to take a broadcastcourse. Some of my first-year master’sstudents in medical television reportingwere sure they wanted to be printjournalists until they produced theirfirst medical television report. Then,some of them realized the power of thebroadcast media to put a “face” ontheir medical stories. We’re all aware ofthe limitations of the 90-second televisionpackage replete with eight-secondsound bites and simple story lines,but don’t underestimate the poetry ofgood television storytelling. You canhave enormous impact. A survey conductedin 1997 by Roper Starch Worldwide,Inc. for the National Health Counciland PBS’s “HealthWeek” showedthat Americans rate television ahead ofhealth professionals, magazines, journalsand newspapers as their principalsource for most medical information.Lastly, ask yourself if you really wantto embrace the life of a medical reporter.There will be hours spent analyzinggenerally poorly written medicaljournal articles. You will place repeatedphone calls to health professionalswho often don’t want to talk toyou. There will be a lack of appreciationfrom newspaper editors and televisionnews directors and not enoughcolumn inches or broadcast airtime toadequately tell your story. And the paywill be not at all commensurate withyour skills or level of education.If none of the above deters you, ifyou find science and medicine inherentlyfascinating, and if you write justfor the joy of turning a good phrase,then medical journalism is for you. ■Thomas Linden, M.D., is director ofthe Medical Journalism Programand Glaxo Wellcome DistinguishedProfessor of Medical Journalism atthe School of Journalism and MassCommunication at the University ofNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lindenwas the first health and sciencecorrespondent for CNBC, medicalreporter for KRON-TV in San Francisco,medical editor of Fox 11 Newsin Los Angeles, and co-anchor of“Physicians’ Journal Update” onLifetime Medical Television.linden@unc.eduNieman Reports / Summer 2003 67
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