How to Get Your Medical References Right by Adele Holmes M.D.

How to Get Your Medical References Right

Readers have medical knowledge from their own forays into the world of illness. Medical professionals are even more savvy to the peculiarities of medicine. Every single person who picks up your writing will have some first-hand experience with drugs, disease, tests, and such. It only takes one error, one wrong descriptor, one inaccurately used medication to lose your reader’s trust.

So you’d better get your medical references right.

Case in point: I’m a medical doctor. I can no longer watch medical series on television because half the time the chest x-ray is displayed backward. Makes me want to pull my hair out. It takes me out of the scene and discredits the whole story to me. Don’t they know how inept the doctor looks, diligently inspecting an x-ray that has the heart pointed the wrong way?

Not everyone who reads your book will be a doctor or nurse or physical therapist or . . . the list is never-ending. But many are. And the ones who aren’t have had their own life experience with broken bones, asthma, open-heart surgery, etc. It’s pretty important to know the details if you want to keep your readers reading.

What’s a medically untrained writer to do?

The first step is research, and not just by googling the issue—you’ll likely be receiving your advice from a snake oil salesman if a random search is all you do. Gather up a library of sites you trust, ones that are easy for you to read and understand. The web addresses I head to first are the those that start with “American Academy of . . .” or “American College of . . .” fill in the blank depending on whether you want to know about radiology (MRI needed for the antagonist’s bashed skull?), or cardiology (heart attack symptoms?), or gastroenterology (how does your protag prep for their dreaded colonoscopy?). You get the idea.

Being a pediatrician, one of my favorite places to recommend for an author’s description of anything and everything from prenatal to young adult issues is the American Academy of Pediatrics’ reference site for parents: healthychildren.org. An example might be that you want to know how to detect genetic abnormalities during pregnancy. Right under that very topic are in depth lay-terminologically described procedures for amniocentesis and more. Need to know what motor skills your six-month character should have, what speech patterns, or if they can have a pincher grasp yet? All there. Take a look; it’s fascinating!

You’ll find your own favorite sources. Make sure they are mainstream and widely accepted by the general medical community. Unless, of course, your intention is to write of quackery. Vetting the site is easiest by starting with the specialty-of-interest’s governing board or academy website. For the example above, aap.org is the website for The American Academy of Pediatrics which oversees pediatricians nationwide, and from there one is directed to the reference material for parents which is written in everyday english. No doctor-speak required.

Drugs have their own issues as well. Never assume you know everything there is to know about ibuprofen because you take it every day. Go to a site like drugs.com or medscape.com‘s drug interaction checker. Tylenol—never give it to the alcoholic uncle unless you want to kill his liver; and it’s not an NSAID (if you know the term, make sure you’re using it properly). Oversights like these turn off many a reader, medically trained or not, who have that certain tidbit of knowledge from an experience the writer may have never had.

After the research is done and the prose is on the page, ask an expert for a review. Medical professionals read a lot outside of their work—novels, memoirs, creative nonfiction, and the like. Many would be happy to share their knowledge with a writer by reading the sections involved for accuracy. Make the ask with professionalism, and if you get turned down, seek out someone else. Once you find a match, you could have a medical fact-checker for the rest of your career.

I say this from personal experience. Doctors hold authors in as high of regard as authors do (most) physicians. While it wouldn’t be appropriate to corner your internist during a busy shift at the hospital, a message left with her receptionist explaining your need should get a response. If you know nurses, radiologists, occupational or speech therapists, ask them. Or ask them who to ask.

And if you have a whole medically themed manuscript, approach a physician to review it for medical correctness in exchange for a shout-out in the acknowledgments and a signed copy of the book. Most would be thrilled for such an opportunity.

But please, if you want to keep your audience, don’t hang up the x-ray backward.

—

ADELE HOLMES graduated from medical school in 1993. After twenty-plus years in private practice pediatrics, her unquenchable desire to wander the world, write, and give back to the community led her to retire from medicine. Her fun-loving family includes a rollicking crew of her husband Chris, two adult children and their spouses, five grandchildren of diverse ages and talents, a horse, and a Bernedoodle. Winter’s Reckoning, Adele’s debut novel, won Honorable Mention in the 2021 William Faulkner Literary Competition. She is currently at work on her second novel in her resident town of Little Rock, Arkansas. Find her online at the following:

Website: https://www.adeleholmes.com/

Facebook: Adele Holmes, MD, Author | Facebook

Instagram: Adele Holmes, MD (@adeleholmesmd)

WINTER’S RECKONING

Forty-six-year-old Madeline Fairbanks has no use for ideas like “separation of the races” or “men as the superior sex.” There are many in her dying Southern Appalachian town who are upset by her socially progressive views, but for years—partly due to her late husband’s still-powerful influence, and partly due to her skill as a healer in a remote town with no doctor of its own—folks have been willing to turn a blind eye to her “transgressions.” Even Maddie’s decision to take on a Black apprentice, Ren Morgan, goes largely unchallenged by her white neighbors, though it’s certainly grumbled about. But when a charismatic and power-hungry new reverend blows into town in 1917 and begins to preach about the importance of racial segregation, the long-idle local KKK chapter fires back into action—and places Maddie and her friends in Jamesville’s Black community squarely in their sights. Maddie had better stop intermingling with Black folks, discontinue her herbalistic “witchcraft,” and leave town immediately, they threaten, or they’ll lynch Ren’s father, Daniel. Faced with this decision, Maddie is terrified . . . and torn. Will she bow to their demands and walk away—or will she fight to keep the home she’s built in Jamesville and protect the future of the people she loves, both Black and white?

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Category: On Writing