Thanks for agreeing to write for Angels in Medicine! This volunteer site is made possible by the generous work of its writers and the individuals and organizations we highlight.
How to Write for Angels in Medicine
The focus of each article is on the doctor, nurse, or healthcare practitioner being featured, highlighting their humanitarian work. As much as you might like to emphasize a new drug, diagnostic, computer system, board member, philanthropist, or what have you, the “Angels” of this site are the heroes who go above and beyond the usual healthcare to provide for those who go without care: the poor (whether in the US or globally), refugees, disaster victims, and the like.
The articles on Angels are meant for the general public, rather than a technical or professional audience. References are not needed, although you can include a list of related articles that the reader might enjoy.
You can model your article on the style seen in The New Yorker, the Sunday New York Times Magazine, or The Atlantic, or the articles from the Angels site I list below. Imagine you’re telling a friend about this amazing person you know!
How to Find a Subject for Your Article
There are many, many healthcare humanitarians out there. Some work for well-known organizations like Doctors Without Borders or Sightsavers. Others volunteer at a local free clinic or go on medical missions with their church or fraternal organization. Some are medical (or dental, or nursing) students who join the school program to practice in some poor or needy area. You might know one or two of these people, from school, church, or job. That’s always a good place to start, with someone you know, who will be more forgiving as you learn the ropes!
Think about what areas interest you. Is it a specific disease, like HIV/AIDS or preventable blindness or cervical cancer, for example? A specific part of the globe, like Nigeria or India or Venezuela, for instance? Perhaps you are learning about the homeless crisis in the US and want to find out who is providing medical care for them. There may be a free clinic in your town or county. Or you wonder who is providing care to all those refugees.
In other words, there are a lot of different subjects that we cover. You can scan through our articles and read about a number of these categories for ideas.
And if you’re still not sure who to write about, ask me! I have lots of ideas, and I’ll be glad to explore them with you, to see what fits your interest.
How to Reach Your Subject
Once you’ve identified some people or organizations you’d like to write about, the next step is getting in touch with them. The first way I do this is by sending an email. Be straightforward and polite, tell them what you hope to do, and see if they are willing. You can include this sentence about the site:
Angels in Medicine highlights the work of medical humanitarians, providing care for people with little access to quality healthcare. https://www.medangel.org/
Sometimes you get no response to your email. Maybe it went to their spam folder, or it wasn’t forwarded to them, or maybe they’re just very busy and never got around to reading it. If you don’t hear back in a week or so, resend your email. I usually put “Resend: ” in the subject line. That sometimes works.
If you still get no response, call them. If you don’t have their phone number, call their office, department, hospital, organization information number — there’s always a way to get a message to them. But if that doesn’t work, then it’s time to move on to another person. I usually have a few requests out, in case someone doesn’t respond.
Record the Interview
The article is typically based on an interview with the highlighted person, and sometimes one other on the team. I strongly suggest recording the interview — all the online and phone apps (Zoom, What’sApp, Skype) include a record feature. If you meet the subject in person, use the record app on your phone.
In my experience, it is best to interview someone “face-to-face” — either in person, or more likely, by a meeting app. Or even by phone call. Interviews by email or text rarely get good responses — people usually don’t like to write out their thoughts and opinions.
Before interviewing your subject, test things out first with a friend to make sure your equipment is working, and that the recording levels are good enough when you play it back. There are inexpensive transcription services out there that might help with the recorded interview, if needed, although you might simply listen to the recording and jot down the quotes and facts you need. One free online service I tried recently is Riverside.
What to Write About
Write about what the person or organization is doing now, whether it’s going on humanitarian missions, working locally at a free clinic, building a health care system, or some other way they are reaching people, as well as how they got there. What inspired them to do this kind of work?
I like to include personal stories to help visualize the work, rather than (or in addition to) “Our 3 volunteer physicians, six RNs, and assorted volunteers treated 148 patients on our three day mission…” A few of those patients will stand out, whether the most rewarding result, the most challenging, the most heart-breaking. Bringing out those stories adds that personal element that makes an article memorable.
It’s also useful to include a short bio of the person, as well as a brief history of the organization or mission, and describing the need this work fills.
Photos also help to tell the story, so remember to ask for them.
Interview Questions
Here are some suggestions for questions you can ask during the interview (in no special order):
- Why is your work needed?
- Who is being helped?
- How did your medical journey lead to this work? How did you begin?
- Do you have an inspiring mentor, or some patient that inspired you to take this direction?
- What are the challenges in helping and reaching this group?
- Who was the most memorable patient? (good way to get a story)
- Have their been any heart-breaking patients? Anything you wish you could have done better? (more stories)
- Do you see things getting better or worse for the people you serve?
- How do you see your work (or organization) changing over the next few years?
- How has this affected your relationships? (Sometimes working overseas, or even working way too many hours in a local clinic, can strain a relationship.)
I’m sure you’ll come up with many interesting areas to explore, and even more while you’re talking. You can always say, “That’s interesting, tell me more about it.”
You can usually follow up with the person to get more information or ask other questions you thought of later. Remember, the people you are interviewing like to help!
One thing I watch out for is talking too much! Sometimes the conversation reminds me of something, and I start to share it… and then realize 10 minutes have gone by without the person getting a chance to speak. Establishing a connection is valuable, but remember to allow the person to share their story.
How to Use Quotes in the Article
People generally don’t speak grammatically, or clearly, or even coherently. It is amazing how much we understand from spoken language. But when you see speech written out, it is sometimes unclear or ambiguous or even unintelligible. You know what they meant, but someone reading what they actually said will not get the point.
I saw this regularly when I edited round-table symposia. A group of doctors, experts in the field, would discuss the latest research findings and presentations at a conference. We would record the session, and then post it on the site. The idea was for readers to feel like they were sitting in the room with the doctors, getting to hear their thoughts and opinions.
Unfortunately, even though they knew the purpose of the session, the experts still spoke quite casually, using lots of jargon and abbreviations and especially way too many pronouns. Sentences like, “When they did that, they got this result, and it was a surprise to them.” “That’s what we saw too!”
With the speakers’ permission, we rewrote what they said so that any reader would understand what they spoke about, adding references, spelling out abbreviations, and generally filling in all the things we leave out when we speak about something to people who know the subject. We would keep the casual style as much as possible, but make it clear what they were talking about. We even put in (laughs) occasionally, when it happened, to add to the verisimilitude.
For articles written for Angels in Medicine, there are a few of ways to work with interview text that doesn’t clearly communicate the speaker’s point. One way is to simply state what they were trying to say, but without using quotes. I probably use this way most often.
A second way is to use snippets of quotes, rather than paragraphs of what they said. There might be a clear phrase, or even a clear sentence or two you can use to communicate their thought in their own words.
A third way is to provide context before using the quote. Describe what they have left out, and then add the quote to provide their voice to the thought. You can even define some technical term they use, to make the quote understandable.
A fourth way is to use square brackets to replace a word or two (usually a pronoun or abbreviation or name) with the actual name. I would only use this occasionally, because it can be distracting to the reader.
A fifth way is to rewrite what they said to make it clear, and then run it by them to see if they would allow you to use that for a quote. I rarely do that for these articles, but it’s an option.
Inspiring Books and Articles
Here are a few books I find inspirational, both for the content and the way they are written. I love their style, and I use them as inspiration for my writing and for the site:
Tracy Kidder wrote a fantastic book about the medical humanitarian Paul Farmer, MD, (founder of Partners in Health), called Mountains Beyond Mountains. He published another terrific book recently, Rough Sleepers, about a doctor who ran the homeless healthcare service at Mass General for 40 or so years. https://www.tracykidder.com/
You might also enjoy reading the work of Theresa Brown, RN. Her first book is called The Shift, and describes from a personal point of view the challenges of a 12-hour shift. Another good book by her, Healing, describes how she dealt with breast cancer, from the patient side. https://www.theresabrownrn.com/books
Elizabeth Kolbert wrote The Sixth Extinction, a Pulitzer prize-winning book about the impact of climate change. What’s amazing about her book is how clear and readable and even enjoyable she makes such a difficult and challenging subject. https://sites.prh.com/elizabethkolbert
Angels in Medicine Articles to Use as Models
Here are a few articles I quite like, both in terms of subject and the style of writing. These should give a sense of what I’m looking for.
Benefits of Writing for Angels in Medicine
Copyright and Reuse
Angels in Medicine is a volunteer organization, which means no one is paid. In appreciation of this generosity, writers keep the copyright on their work. (In contrast, when you write for a company that pays you, they generally own the copyright.)
This means that you can reuse what you write. For instance, you can submit your article to another publication, like the local newspaper, a medical society newsletter, a national magazine, or even your own book.
Professional Editing
Each article you write is edited by me. I have 20+ years of professional editing experience, for companies such as Scientific American Medicine, Medscape, and Clinical Care Options. I am glad to share my experience with you, so that you can learn to write better articles for a general readership.
Thanks again for writing for Angels in Medicine!
Harry Goldhagen
Editor
Questions? Email me at: harryllama@yahoo.com