Dial 911: Emergencies in Medical Writing

June 28, 2013

Over the Next 30 Minutes…

• We’ll present five scenarios that cover common (and not so common) emergency situations faced by medical writers and people who hire medical writers

• If you have questions, use the chat function either within the Google Event listing or YouTube. We will have someone monitoring each of these areas.

Scenario 1: The Disappearing Client

What Should Arnold Do?1. Chalk it up as a lesson learned and forget about the money. Next

time, work out of the terms of a contract for any new client so that you receive payments in milestones along the way. That way, you don’t have to go begging at the end of the project.

2. Keep plugging away at your contact. She can’t ignore you forever. 3. Try another avenue of attack by reaching out to someone else at

the company, especially in higher levels. Try your contact’s boss, or their boss. Basically, whoever’s name you can find on the company web site.

4. Hire a lawyer. You don’t have time to put up with this BS. Once the first threatening letter arrives on your client’s desk, they’ll see that you are not messing around.

Scenario 2: Sneaky Sneaky

What Should Kimberly Do?1. Stop bellyaching. You got a great product on time so obviously,

Kim gave this to someone whose work she trusts. Who cares who did the actual brunt of the work?

2. Have a frank discussion with Kim to explain your concerns and listen to what she has to say. Perhaps you can both come to a suitable understanding that doesn’t destroy the relationship you have built with her over the years.

3. Cross Kim off your list of potential freelancers. How are you ever going to be able to trust her in the future? Plenty other fish in the sea.

4. You have the emails showing who the true developer of these slides was so why not just reach out to that person directly for future work since he did such a good job with this project? Maybe this will be a blessing in disguise.

Scenario 3: Love vs. Money

What Would You Tell Edna?1. Take the job and forget the Eastern Shore of Maryland. With the money

you’ll make from this job, you’ll be able to take your husband to Paris. I’m sure he won’t mind so much then!

2. Why not make this a working vacation? Your husband likes to play golf, doesn’t he? Send him off to the course for a few hours so that you can dedicate yourself to this work. Hopefully, you can get enough done so your nights are free.

3. Why not see if you can outsource the work to one of your trusted colleagues before you turn the job down? It’ll only take a few hours for you to QC the work before you turn it in. Maybe you can negotiate a finder’s fee so everyone will win and no one’s the wiser.

4. Politely turn the job down and explain that your marriage is more important than this client relationship. You need to have some professional boundaries.

Scenario 4: The Nightmare Client

What Should Dudley Do?1. Take a deep breath, suck it up, and stay on the job. Every

revision means more money, right?2. Explain to your client politely that you’d like to extract

yourself from this assignment as your schedule has become too busy to accommodate these unforeseen changes, but remind them that you’d be happy to consider working for them in the future

3. Explain to your client impolitely that they need to learn how to treat their freelancers and better value their time.

4. Stop answering your phone and responding to their emails (ie, give them a taste of their own medicine)

Scenario 5: At the 11th Hour

What Would You Tell Charlene?1. Enlist your computer-savvy nephew to see if he can open the original file,

even at the risk of burning through another day without the material you need. If he can recover the file, you can still get the project done on time and your client will never know the difference.

2. Search online to see if the slides are available via webcast on the EAIP site. Heck, even if you have to buy the slides from the EAIP, it’s a better alternative than revealing your flub to the client.

3. Tell your client that your computer died and ate all your files, including your email and the slides in question. Ask her to resend the slides, and assure her you will still get the assignment in on time. You might sound a little flaky – where’s your automated data back-up system? – but at least you don’t have to admit to being a procrastinator.

4. Come clean with the client, apologize for not noticing the problem sooner, and ask her to resend the slides. Meet the deadline with a really good article, and all will be forgiven.