Article Summary: AI can support medical writers with tasks such as organising information, creating early outlines, and reviewing approved content. Used as an assistive tool, AI can reduce friction without compromising quality, and it is also a perfectly reasonable choice to remain cautious and use it sparingly.
When AI writing tools first came onto the scene, I was in no hurry to use them. My hesitation stemmed from concerns I know many medical writers share: concerns about accuracy, confidentiality, the quality of the work, and what these tools might mean for the future of my profession. Those were (and still are) legitimate concerns.
Over time, the medical writing field grew to embrace the potential of AI more widely, and so did I. Still, there’s no question in my mind that a human in the medical writer role will not be replaced by AI.
If you’re still uncertain about adopting AI, I think that’s entirely reasonable. Things are moving incredibly fast, and we still have little understanding of long-term implications. Those include the effects of AI use on young minds and the environmental impact of the data centres that power it. With that in mind, this article will review how AI can be helpful, where it falls short, and how to use it responsibly in a field where accountability is critical.
Why Medical Writers Are Right to Be Cautious About AI
Understanding all the risks of AI in medical writing is the first step toward using it well. AI can produce incorrect or invented information and fabricate references that, from the outside, look completely plausible. It can flatten nuance, leave out important context, and generate fluent text that sounds more certain than the evidence warrants.
It can choose an inappropriate source, overlook important audience context, and reinforce bias.
While advanced AI tools designed for scientific writing can do full literature reviews, they may leave out grey literature or evidence you would have found useful by involving yourself in the process.
The way AI tools write now – imitating good scientific writing – makes weak reasoning a lot harder to spot. An abstract may read as finished and credible even if it’s standing on shaky ground.
Remember that AI writes from what it knows – and it will always lack your knowledge of what the client is like, the background of the project except for what you’ve shared, how things land with different stakeholders, and the other “soft skills” that not only make us human, but lend us expertise as writers.
This is why medical writers will not lose their jobs to AI. Your expertise, experience, and judgement matter far too much to outsource, especially to a machine.
There are also confidentiality questions about what you enter into an AI tool, as well as client policies, ownership, and disclosure to consider. AI introduces an additional risk: quality may be sacrificed in pursuit of speed.
If these risks lead you to use these tools sparingly, or to wait until you feel ready, that is not a sign of falling behind. Caution in order to protect the quality of your work is a sign of professionalism.
Where AI Can Help Medical Writers
When it earns its place, AI in medical writing tends to be most useful at the edges of the writing process, where it reduces friction without taking over decisions that require the most professional judgement.
As someone running their own business, you may find it useful to help with pitch writing, brainstorming ideas for new clients, creating ideas for social media posts, or keeping track of a never-ending to-do list.
Just like with medical writing itself, AI may not be very useful by itself. Many of us have seen AI-generated pitches in our inboxes at this point. However, with a little human oversight, you may be able to offload some of the administrative tasks that keep you busy as a freelancer.
When it comes to medical writing itself, writers I know use it to come up with ideas, interrogate outlines to make sure nothing was missed, organise messy notes, summarise research, and spot repetition in a long draft.
It can suggest plain-language alternatives to consider, help repurpose approved content, and get you past the blank page. Some of the biggest benefits of AI in medical writing appear when it is used for supportive tasks like these.
In every case, the output is a starting point for you to assess, not something you should automatically accept.
Prompting AI: You Get Out What You Put In
You can reduce the time you spend trying to get an AI tool to give you a better answer by putting in a better prompt.
The more information an AI tool has to work with, the better. AI tools have what’s called a “context window.” This dictates how much they can store in their memory. The more you pay for, and the more advanced the model you use, the better and longer the AI tool’s memory.
If you want to use AI well, give the tool you’re using as much information as possible about what you’re working on. Think: audience, deliverable, ask, type of company the work is being done for, and specific disease state. Remember to exclude anything confidential or not allowed by the client’s AI policy.
If you have a paid account with an AI tool, I suggest creating a project and saving source materials there, such as brand guidelines, outline templates, or literature you’re using. With a paid account and source material saved in a project, you won’t have to remind an AI tool what your project is about every time you work with it. Instead, it will build a memory of your work, becoming more effective over time.
Don’t hesitate to give an AI tool feedback if the output isn’t what you wanted – this can allow it to refine for the future.
Discover the most effective ways to prompt AI. This is your secret weapon to unlock the true potential of AI as a medical writer.
Grab your copy of Mastering the Art of AI Prompts for Medical Writers today.
Why Fact-Checking Alone Isn’t Enough
Verifying isolated facts is necessary, but it’s only the start. All the potential pitfalls we discussed above are reasons you still have to dive into the evidence yourself, verify and evaluate the methodology, and make the final call on what stands up to scrutiny.
It may seem pointless to use AI, given how much you still need to be in the weeds. That’s why so much of AI’s use can be found in simpler tasks, like summarising and organising research, creating citations (make sure you tell the AI tool what format you need them in), finding starting points for research, and proposing outlines.
When I’m unsure whether or not AI will be helpful or a hindrance, this is the framework I use to decide.
The CLEAR Framework for Deciding Whether to Use AI
C is for Confidentiality. Am I permitted to enter this information into the tool? Does it contain personal, proprietary, unpublished or client-sensitive material?
L is for Level of risk. What happens if the output is wrong? Is this a low-risk brainstorming task, or a high-risk clinical, scientific or claims-related decision? Who, if anyone, is reviewing my work?
E is for Evidence. Can every factual statement, reference and implication be independently verified using appropriate sources?
A is for Accountability. Who is responsible for the final output? Would I be comfortable explaining to the client or reviewer exactly how AI was used?
R is for Real value. Is the tool making the work clearer, stronger or more efficient, or simply producing more text for me to review?
The framework fits any tool and any task, making it far more useful than another list of dos and don’ts that becomes dated the moment a new model appears.
Be the first to know when my upcoming book, Making Sense of Medical Writing, comes out. An easy read for medical writers of all stripes to understand the field – including how to break in – with a whole section about using AI. Join the waitlist today.
AI Tools That Medical Writers Might Explore
People often want a shortlist of AI products for medical writing, and I would steer you towards thinking in categories instead, since specific tools are constantly changing. The current range of AI tools for medical writers spans general-purpose conversational assistants (Claude or ChatGPT), literature discovery tools (SciSpace), transcription tools (Otter AI), and language and editing assistants (Grammarly).
You can also explore other tools like SciteAI, Perplexity, MACg, and OpenEvidence, if you’re a licensed healthcare provider.
Within each of these tool types, you will usually find subscription levels that dictate your usage limits and privacy settings.
Whatever you explore, check its data-handling and privacy terms, whether your uploaded content trains the model, whether the client permits its use, what sources it can access, and whether its outputs can be verified. Err on the side of caution with any confidential information and refrain from putting it into an AI tool. If you’d like, you can take a look at the specific free and low-cost tools I’m using right now to get started.
The Role of AI In the Workflow of a New Medical Writer
If you are new to medical writing, I would suggest using AI sparingly. Before you can direct AI well, you need to know what good looks like. That knowledge comes from developing your own writing skills, finding your own voice, and building the critical judgement that tells you when something isn’t right. It does not come from prompting a machine.
Critical thinking is a key skill in the medical writing profession, from evaluating study methodology to spotting literature gaps and considering how best to structure a whitepaper, manuscript, or patient education piece so the intended audience understands the most important message.
AI can produce polished, often inaccurate pieces that lack the substance an experienced medical writer can provide. It’s crucial to take the time to learn the skills you need – audience understanding, evidence appraisal, balancing stakeholder interests, and good writing – before you incorporate AI into your workflow.
AI Literacy Is Becoming Part of Medical Writing
AI literacy is a crucial skill now if you are going to use AI. You need to have enough understanding to know what a tool can do, where it may fail, and how to clearly communicate how it was used. The goal is always to stay accountable for the quality and integrity of the final piece of work.
Start Your Medical Writing Career with Confidence
When it’s used without that level of critical thought, AI can undermine the very qualities clients rely on medical writers to provide, as well as trust within the client relationship. Writers who are thoughtful now about how they use AI are well placed for what comes next, and the ongoing conversation about AI in medical writing is definitely worth staying part of, at whatever pace feels right to you.
AI is changing the tools that we use, and it’s making judgement, confidence and strategic thinking matter more than ever. If you’re ready to navigate the next step in your medical writing career with the help of an experienced medical writer who’s been where you are, explore mentoring options today.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can medical writers use AI?
Medical writers can use AI for lower-risk tasks such as brainstorming, organising notes, developing outlines, identifying repetition and repurposing approved content. Any factual or scientific output should be independently verified by the writer.
What are the risks of AI in medical writing?
Risks include fabricated references, inaccurate claims, loss of nuance, confidentiality breaches, bias, inappropriate certainty and unclear accountability. These matter especially in healthcare, where the stakes for the reader are high.
Should medical writers disclose their use of AI?
Disclosure depends on the client, employer, publisher and type of project. Follow the relevant policy, and ask the client whenever the expectations are unclear.
Will AI replace medical writers?
AI will change some medical writing workflows. It cannot independently take responsibility for evidence interpretation, audience needs, stakeholder decisions or the integrity of the final work, which keeps skilled writers in demand.
What information should not be entered into an AI tool?
Keep confidential, identifiable, proprietary or unpublished information, or anything covered by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), out of any AI tool unless both the tool and the client’s policy explicitly permit its use.
