Featured Writer - Leondria (Lea) Taty

The Healthcare Writers Network is thrilled to present our first featured writer! Read below to learn all about how Leondria (Lea) is rockin’ the writing world and be sure to connect with her by clicking the icons on the bottom left of the page. Happy reading!

Q: How did you get started?

A: I first got started through a fortunate stroke of serendipity. A family nurse practitioner preceptor that I had during my first clinical rotation started talking to me about her involvement with clinical content review for Elsevier Clinical Solutions one day while we were taking our lunch break. She was becoming overwhelmed with the day to day grind of working at the clinic, and couldn’t keep up with the responsibility of clinical content review anymore. Finding a replacement was difficult because other nurse clinicians she spoke with weren’t interested in that type of work. The more she described what she did as a clinical skills content nurse contributor, the more interested I became. I guess my enthusiasm impressed her because not long after, I was selected as her replacement. I soon fell in love with the idea that I could use medical communication as a unique instrument to help others using my nursing background.

Q: What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your career? 

A: At the beginning, I wish I had joined a community of other like-minded medical writers - something very similar to The Healthcare Writers Network (although I’m not sure if I would have found an equally awesome community at that time!). In retrospect, I can attest to how beneficial having a medical writing community can be towards developing confidence, expanding in knowledge, becoming inspired, and gaining exposure. You don’t know what you don’t know until realized through someone else’s experience.

Q: What advice would you give to those who would like to be successful in your field?

A: Seek out and join a medical writing community STAT! You wont regret it. Success is so much better when it’s shared. You benefit when you help others reach success. Your contribution within a community (no matter how small) adds value to the greater good of the entire group. The questions you ask, the inquiries you make and the posts you share are all apart of the richness that derive from participating in a like-minded community.

Q: What are you currently working on?

A: I still remain as a long-term freelancer with Elsevier Clinical Solutions, but just recently started branching out. I just wrapped up a pretty interesting project working with a client that is based in France. The client is an e-learning company that develops online animated video scripts for various institutions. During this project, I created scripted scenarios for the learning needs of French nurses learning how to interact with English speaking patients in an emergency department environment. It was very interesting to say the least! It was a big learning curve navigating the contract process (which was mostly written in French) and dealing with international wire transfers. I also learned a lot about the difference between the nursing role in France versus the U.S.

Q: What are your future plans?

I’m now looking to specialize my medical writing within the niche area of complementary and integrative health. As a board certified holistic nurse, my clinical practice has always been inspired and guided by complementary and alternative modalities (CAM). There’s a lot of written information available about CAM, but the source is often questionable, which can be dangerous and misleading to the public. I hope to exercise my nursing credentials as a trusted source of information surrounding CAM. I’m also considering facilitating community workshops on creative writing and journaling as a healing modality.

That’s it for this feature. Be sure to connect with Lea on LinkedIn here!

Thanks so much for sharing!
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Katie Bush

Content Marketing Manager and Graphic Designer for The Social Nurse, blogger, and mom of two.

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