Here’s a sweet niche gig for somebody with an admittedly unique background: writing about pediatrics and parenting topics in a highly accurate, polished, and yet totally accessible way. If you know how to write to parents, if you know a thing or two about medicine, and if you’re passionate about furthering the mission of an institution that’s bent on improving the lives of kids and their families, then this is truly a rare opportunity, and we’d like to hear from you.

Nitty Gritty

There are two main thrusts to the copy you’ll be tasked with creating: On the one hand, you’re writing to moms about the health and medical topics they care about. That means using your gifts of description and explanation as well as your ability to make technical topics come to life. Maybe you’ll be writing about a breakthrough in pediatric cancer care, or offering nutritional guidance, or telling a heart-racing medical drama about a nail-biter of a diagnosis with a moving treatment outcome. In all of these cases, you’ll keep in mind your reader, a young mother with limited medical knowledge but plenty of interest in the topic. The second main thrust will be writing public relations copy for doctors at this prestigious institution – breakthroughs, achievements, honors, new studies and the like. For that, you’ll call on your understanding of medical topics as well as your ability to ask the right questions and educate yourself quickly on new material.

Hired Gun Profile

While it’s unlikely you’ll have done this exact thing before, you do have solid experience writing on medical topics AND writing copy geared toward parents. Have you had a medical column in a parenting mag? Written medical features for a general-interest publication? Are you a mommy blogger who tackles medical and technical topics on the regular? Of course we’ll want to see samples of your work that display this combination of experience types. Most importantly, of course, your passion for helping parents find answers to the questions that concern them the most leaps off the page. You’re a gifted interviewer, able to get highly specialized people who are used to speaking with other highly specialized people to simplify their language and speak English to you. In such situations you see yourself (and rightly so) as the conduit between the experts and the people on the street; rather than spewing jargon to make yourself appear smarter, you’re happy to translate into clear and simple language. Your wordsmithing skills and sense of story belong not only to the discipline of writing; you’re also a talented editor with a hawk eye for tightening up a narrative and making things more vivid. And of course it wouldn’t hurt if you’d done some PR copywriting in the past, particularly for a healthcare company.

Inside Skinny

This is a freelance gig with an expectation of 20-30 hours per week in the office in New York.

Net Net

For just the right writer/editor, this is a great opportunity for steady work, a chance to showcase your rare talents, and a way to make a positive difference in the world.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, creed, age, sexual orientation, veteran status, marital status, disability, or any other status protected by applicable law.