Medical writing in Finland

Abstract

Finland has a flourishing pharmaceutical and life science industry and research scene. Medical writing, however, is an unfamiliar term to many Finns and there is no Finnish equivalent for the title ‘medical writer’. Those people who do medical writing in Finland, but are by job description something else, may be members of other associations or unions and may not even be aware that what they do is actually called medical writing. Finnish medical writers do not have an association of their own, so EMWA could serve as a forum for bringing medical writers in Finland together with each other and with medical writers in other countries.

Keywords:

• Medical writing
• Finland
• Association

Plagiarism watch

Another month, another European politician enveloped in a plagiarism scandal. This time it is the turn of Annette Schavan, who, this time last year, was the German Minister of Education and Research and the holder of a doctorate. Now she is neither.

After a blogger claimed to have found evidence of plagiarism in Schavan's PhD thesis,¹ the institution that awarded it, the University of Düsseldorf, officially investigated the case and concluded that there were sufficient grounds to revoke the PhD. This decision left Schavan without an academic degree – pretty embarrassing for the minister in charge of education. Her inevitable resignation soon followed, although she refutes and is challenging the university's decision.

A week after it announced its decision, the University of Düsseldorf issued a press release explaining it.² The university claims that Schavan's case was handled just as anyone else's would have been, and denied that the investigation was politically motivated. It further claims that what constitutes plagiarism is no different now than it was in the 1980s, when Schavan received her PhD.

Stephen Gilliver

Center for Primary Health Care Research, Malmö, Sweden

[email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sanna Lönnfors

Sanna Lönnfors After finishing physiotherapy studies in Finland and working for some years as a medical writer specialising in manuscript writing at a clinical research centre in Berlin, Sanna Lönnfors is now living in Tel Aviv and working as a freelance medical writer, translator, and journalist. Sanna has a Bachelor's degree in Physiotherapy from Satakunta University of Applied Sciences in Finland and a Master of Science in Public Health from Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin in Germany. She is currently studying for an MA in creative non-fiction writing at Bar Ilan University in Israel.