When thinking about doctors and everything they provide, most just focus on office visits, surgeries, and the act of practicing medicine. However, there are many other essential aspects of the medical field, including medical ethics and writing.
Dr. James Murtagh has been a practicing doctor in various specialties for over four decades. Along with his time visiting and working with patients, he also has a lot of respect for medical ethics and writing.
He spends part of his time serving on committees, researching, and more. These contributions can sometimes be overlooked, but they still play a vital role in better patient health.
What is Medical Ethics?
Medical ethics is a set of moral principles that guide the conduct of healthcare professionals. These principles help ensure patients receive high-quality care and are treated with respect and compassion.
Medical ethics focuses on four main areas: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.
Autonomy refers to the patient’s right to make healthcare decisions free from coercion or outside influences. Beneficence requires that providers do everything they can to benefit the patient’s health and well-being.
Non-maleficence makes sure providers avoid causing harm to patients under any circumstances. Finally, justice requires that all patients have access to similar levels of care regardless of their background or socioeconomic status.
While medical ethics is often associated with healthcare providers, it also extends to research labs and pharmaceutical companies. These institutions must adhere to strict ethical guidelines when designing and conducting clinical trials, approving new drugs, and publishing their findings. If there are no guidelines for them to follow, it can turn into an unregulated mess in many cases.
Medical ethics helps ensure patients receive the best care, free from discrimination or abuse. It also protects the rights of researchers and healthcare professionals, so they can focus on delivering the best possible results for their patients. Dr. James Murtagh has always seen medical ethics as a significant part of the medical field.
What is Medical Writing?
Medical writing is another part of medicine that Dr. James Murtagh has stayed involved with over the years. It is a specialized field of writing that involves communicating complex scientific and technical information clearly and concisely.
Medical writers use their knowledge of science, medicine, and communication to produce materials such as reports, manuscripts for journals or conferences, regulatory agency submissions, clinical study protocols, press releases, educational materials, training manuals, and other types of documents.
Although the specific skills needed for medical writing may vary depending on the type of material and its intended audience, some basic principles apply to all medical writing projects.
These include an understanding of the subject matter, strong research skills, excellent English language proficiency, superb time management skills, strong attention to detail, a clear understanding of the target audience, and the ability to communicate complex information in a clear, concise way.
Medical writers usually have bachelor’s degrees, advanced degrees, or training in medical writing. Many also have work experience in science, medicine, or healthcare before entering the field of medical writing. Dr. James Murtagh was involved early. He wanted to share his thoughts and knowledge in written form.
Medical writers are often hired by pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies, healthcare organizations, academic institutions, and other businesses that provide products or services that may be relevant to the healthcare industry.
They may also work independently as consultants or contractors for these entities. Medical writers may specialize in specific areas within the field, such as medical communications, regulatory writing, scientific publication support, grant and proposal writing, or educational materials. However, many medical writers work across a broad range of areas within the field.
This type of writing is integral to the healthcare industry because it helps improve patient care, facilitates research and development activities, and increases public understanding of science and health issues.
It also ensures that important scientific and medical information is shared quickly and clearly with key stakeholders such as physicians, patients, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. They play an essential role in helping to bring new treatments to market more efficiently so that they can reach people who need them as soon as possible.
How Dr. James Murtagh Stays Up With Medical Ethics and Writing
Dr. James Murtagh prides himself on being more than only a practicing medical doctor. He also loves the opportunity to work in medical ethics and medical writing. More specifically, he founded the consulting group Team Integrity to help.
The goal of this medical ethics consulting group is all about accountability. Ethics should never be overlooked anywhere in the medical field, and Dr. James Murtagh is right there to try to help out.
Connected to Team Integrity is a congressional forum that Dr. James Murtagh recently chaired. It was called the Health Integrity Project, and it was another way to stay involved instead of regular practice. Keeping integrity in the healthcare industry is only helping the relationship between doctors and patients over the years.
Published work has gone online and in print for Dr. James Murtagh during his decades as a professional doctor. He’s reached the point of serving as the editor for some websites providing detailed information on his fields of expertise.
He’s worked with many top medical institutions in the United States, including Emory University, the University of Michigan, Parkland, Memorial Hospital, and the National Institutes of Health.
Being someone who can bring more to the table than just practicing medicine certainly helps Dr. James Murtagh. He’s even dabbled into work as a traveling doctor through an organization helping less fortunate areas.
This can seem like a lot on the plate for the average doctor, but Dr. Murtagh’s passion for helping others has always carried him through.
