My big beautiful writing quinceanera

You know what it is like returning from busy conference weeks. Stacks of information, new contacts, and conversations marinating in your mind. I am lucky to connect with writers from across the globe and my favorite part--always the stories.

It was during once of those conversations where I realized although I have been writing for closer to 20 years, my independent writing life just turned 15. I joked that my writing career was indeed reaching adult hood--a quinceanera of sorts.

My early life as a writer went something like this. A pharmaceutical client, agency, or medical communications client called and requested content--manuscripts, slides, e-learning etc. Typically it would be about a specific disease state with an emphasis on a new entrant to the armitorium. Pharm company x has a drug in the pipeline and is interested in content about unmet needs and context around the benefits of their drug. Call me naive but I didn't recognize this as marketing until later in my career.

Flash forward 15 years and I have retained the research and industry skills but somewhere along the line abandoned an attenuated view of healthcare in favor of learning from multiple perspectives. I became a journalist. Traveling to meetings about policy, economics, science, digital journalism, and medicine--I now have a more mature appreciation of the complexity of our medical and healthcare ecosystem.

​I am ready for cake or in my case--bring on the donuts.

National Institute for Healthcare Management

Following the first night of the International Society For Pharmacoeconomics And Outcomes Research  (ISPOR) Annual Meeting I had an invitation to attend the NIHCM awards dinner.

​Hosted in the beautiful Renwick Gallery I was honored to meet winners from a variety of categories including television & radio journalism, research, digital media, print journalism, and print journalism from general circulation.

Digital media is finally being recognized as a valid platform for questioning data, exploring relationships from hypothesis driven research, and creating a powerful narrative voice. I was in good company and motivated to continue to advance research, curiosity, and quality evidence.