EMWA Webinars Programme
EMWA webinars help members to develop skills and keep up to date with new or rapidly developing areas. Most of our webinars are live, online seminars with the opportunity for participants to ask questions. For live webinars, you only need to register – you will need your EMWA membership details.
Upcoming 2022 webinars are listed below
Live webinars are recorded and uploaded to the Webinar Archive soon after the event. The Webinar Archive is only accessible to EMWA members.
Each year we run a few webinars that are publicly available.
Diana Ribeiro is the EPDC member responsible for webinars. With the support of the webinar team, Diana leads, plans and promotes the programme, helps presenters to prepare for their webinars, provides quality assurance, and runs the live webinars. The webinar team also provides analysis of the webinar metrics.
Meet the EMWA webinar team
Diana Ribeiro
Diana Ribeiro is a pharmacist and freelance medical writer based in Cascais, Portugal.
Before starting her career in medical writing, Diana worked 10+ years in hospital and community pharmacies, where she helped patients and healthcare professionals with drug management and information.
Nowadays, she helps pharma, biotech, and meddev companies communicate with their audiences in a clear, accurate, and compelling way.
Diana is an active member of the European Medical Writers Association: “Volunteering for EMWA has been a way to form great connections and to feel I’m making a useful contribution.”
Heather Mason
My career has evolved over 25 years from laboratory research to clinical research, medical liaison and medical writing.
I have been a freelance medical writer since 2010, moving my business from the UK in 2013, to the South West of France; for a better work-life balance and to experience a new language and a new culture.
I have been a member of EMWA since 2018 and have found an incredible source of knowledge and support.
I have built trusted relationships globally with a wide variety of clients. My portfolio includes patient-focused materials, manuscripts, literature reviews, conference reports, news beats, editing and clinical evaluation reports.
While my more recent therapeutic experience is in COVID-19, HIV, orthopaedics, and Alzheimer’s disease, I have worked on many other specialities. My passion lies in rare hereditary diseases and patient advocacy.
Paul Wafula
ABX-CRO
I am a medical writer specialising in writing, editing and updating a broad range of clinical trial documents for study areas including haematology, neurology and oncology.
I am currently a volunteer in the Webinar team, a role I have had the pleasure to serve in since 2018. Prior to that, I volunteered as a subcommittee member of the Freelance Business Group from 2016, when I joined EMWA, till 2018.
I started a career in medical writing in 2015, following over 10 years’ experience in biomedical research.
Tania M. Puvirajesingh
Freelance Writer and Editor
I am an experienced PhD-qualified Biologist and Medical Writer. I hold a Bachelor's degree in Life Sciences from Imperial College London (2003) and a Master's degree in Clinical Infection and Microbiology from the University of Liverpool (2005).
In 2009, I obtained a PhD for developing innovative medical devices to functionally analyse glycan structures, which have molecular roles in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease.
During my nine years' professional experience (2009–2018), I managed projects with key opinion leaders.
I have filed two patents on breast cancer and a nano-sized drug delivery structure. I have authored 22 scientific articles, reviews and book chapters in high-profile journals, including Nature Communications.
I have won a total of £495,000 in funding that has driven medical research projects. I also have digital, creative and web content management skills. I have joined the team to help deliver webinars on timely topics in medical writing.
Maria Carolina Rojido
Carolina is a Medical Writer and Scientific Communications Consultant, medically qualified and skilled at reporting complex scientific information and working with key opinion leaders to write and edit medical communications, moderate advisory boards, and deliver educational seminars online and in-person.
She is adept at keeping abreast of current literature, emerging sciences, technological developments and medical trends, and exploiting her medical education and high adaptability on therapeutic areas to write and deliver high-quality medical documents.
Additionally, she is passionate about Sustainable Nutrition, i.e. predominantly plant-based nutrition patterns, and has created and delivered education to encourage dialogue among clinicians and scientists about nutrition.
We are happy to announce upcoming webinars below. Webinars may be either recorded and uploaded on the due date or live online seminars. For live webinars, you only need to register and then connect to our webinars platform on the due date. A recording will be available shortly after the event in the Archive section. Nevertheless, we advise you to participate, because this will enable you to ask questions and contribute to an active discussion. For the recorded webinars we encourage you to send us any questions you may have on the topic by the date indicated and they will be answered in the recording.
Please email the webinar team with any questions or accessibility concerns.
Note: We reserve the right to cancel a webinar if needed, although we will make all effort to avoid it. Also, we make every effort to ensure we have a stable internet connection to run EMWA webinars, but it is not possible to provide a 100% stable connection. If for any reason, the presentation has to be cancelled by the organiser, a notification email will be sent as soon as possible.
2022 Webinars:
Tuesday 19th July 2022, 17:00 CET
The 10 Most Common Misconceptions New Freelance Medical Writers Have & Why They’re Wrong
by Sophie Ash, BSc (Hons), DipION
It’s not uncommon for fresh-faced freelancers to feel overwhelmed when embarking on entrepreneurship for the first time. Suddenly faced with the prospect of self-promotion, branding, sales, and negotiation, it’s easy to lose momentum, or get stuck before you’re even out of the gate. “How much should I charge?”, “Is networking essential for my success?”, and “What should I put in my portfolio?” are just a handful of the questions that are probably running through your jittery mind. Rest assured, this is totally normal. If you act now, you can get back on the straight and narrow, well on your way to increased freedom and flexibility in your freelancing business. It’s time to show up for yourself and quit floundering. Avoid making the ten most common mistakes that new freelance medical writers make by learning from others’ business blunders.
Learning Objectives:
• List the top ten most common misconceptions that new freelance medical writers make
• Create an action plan to help you and your freelance medical writing business thrive
Thursday 15th September 2022, 14:00 CET
Assessing and Reporting Environmental Risk for Human Medicinal Products throughout Development
Diana Radovan PhD ELS, Head of Regulatory Affairs Europe at Plusultra pharma GmbH
Liron Sarid-Krebs PhD, Senior Consultant/Team Lead at Biopharama Excellence, a Pharmalex Company
Environmental risk assessment of medicinal products for human use is the process through which Health Authorities worldwide ensure that the potential effects of pharmaceuticals on the environment are studied and adequate precautions are taken if specific risks are identified. In this webinar, we’ll focus on European risk assessment requirements and how regulatory medical writers (of all experience levels, primarily those authoring/interested in authoring eCTD modules beyond Modules 2 and 5, as well as other non-eCTD key regulatory documents) can support risk reporting at different development stages:
• before initiating clinical trials, i.e. at Clinical Trial Application (CTA) stage
• at marketing authorisation application (MAA) stage (eCTD Module 1.6 preparation), including impact on product information
• when answering Day 80/120 EMA questions, i.e. what risk-related questions to expect.
Moreover, the recent and ongoing advancement of medicinal products into the advanced therapy medicinal product (ATMP) field and gene therapy medicinal product (GTMP) field dramatically increases the need for genetically modified organism (GMO) assessments at all development stages. Understanding GMO regulations, in particular at EU country level at CTA stage, can accelerate clinical trial initiation and overall development timelines. GMO and non-GMO European requirements will be critically discussed.
Monday 17th October 2022, 14:00 CET
Searching the Medical Literature –tips for using Google Scholar and MEDLINE effectively
by Alison Rapley, Freelance Medical Writing Trainer
Huge amounts of scientific information are available in the public domain. Scientific and medical researchers and medical writers need to be able to access current reliable
information in order to prepare good quality accurate documents. The aim of this webinar is to provide tips for effective searching using search engines such as Google Scholar and databases such as MEDLINE. We will look at the use of advanced search techniques and Medical Subject Headings (MESH) in Medline using Pubmed as the database host.
The webinar will include “real-time” on-line searches for participants to see on screen, and the opportunity to ask questions and see the effects of different approaches to searching.
See Past Webinars
(Member login required)
Volunteering for EMWA webinars
If you think you have something interesting to communicate to other EMWA members and are eager to run a webinar of your own, contact the webinar team. Your proposal will be evaluated by the webinars team and the EPDC and we will provide our feedback as soon as possible.