How to Overcome Academic Trauma and Build Confidence as a Freelance Medical Writer

You might be a medical writer who's left academia or clinical practice, but you're still carrying the weight of what you've lost, your title, your community, maybe even your confidence. Today I'm joined by Hope Lafferty, a writer with a background in psychotherapy who spent decades exploring the intersections of identity, trauma, and storytelling.

[00:00:24] Together. We're exploring how the grief of transitioning out of a stable professional identity can be reframed as resilience. We'll focus on the importance of entrepreneurial habits and how small practices can help you reclaim your voice and build a writing life that truly belongs to you.

[00:00:44] I'm your host Alex Howson, and this is Write Medicine.

We're here to talk about, how to work as a freelance writer, how to think about, being someone who has their own business [00:01:00] and all the stops along the way. Can you start us off by sharing a bit about your path into this freelance medical writing world, and what drew you to supporting writers in this space?

Yeah, first off, I actually started out my career as a group psychotherapist, and I think about what that means. It's like basically you sit and you listen to people tell stories all day, and then you write them down. So I didn't even really think about being a writer in that, as far as medical writing goes when I'm thinking about treatment notes.

[00:01:31] But that was a lot of what I was at least starting to do. But I've always written, I've written recreationally since I was a kid. And the other thing that I noticed. Was, I always picked up on other people's talents since I was very young. I was always someone who wanted to make things happen like during play time.

[00:01:52] And I would enlist my friends and we'd do puppet shows and we'd do improv things even before we knew what improv even was. But there was this [00:02:00] thing that I saw other people having special. Abilities. And then over the course of my life, maybe that's why I became a therapist.

[00:02:08] It's like I always went in looking for people's strengths. And not necessarily figuring out what their diagnoses were. I was never fascinated by that. I never got good at that. The school that I went to wasn't big on that type of, top down. It was more bottom up. So I've always thought about people in those ways and thinking about communication and how do we get to the essence of self.

[00:02:32] Ha that's what I've always written about and, all right, so how does that translate into medical writing per se? It's if, if we're gonna go into what is, what's the cause? What's the correlate? What is the thing that is actually spurring this thing that we're seeing?

[00:02:48] Phenotype, what is underneath that? So we could go molecular or we can go just, I don't know, existential but that's always been like this grist for me, this thing that I'm always fascinated [00:03:00] by, in, in how do we communicate. And then as I've gotten more and more into teaching medical writers and especially folks that are transitioning away from academia, thinking about like, how do we then write all these different types of medical writing? What does it mean to write a journal article, and then how many people do we really need to communicate with? All right, so we think about the journal as being, written for specialists. Okay, great. But I remember, and Alex, you probably remember the first time you read a journal article, and I suspect you were probably in college, right? Not a specialist, maybe some folks listening in were more precocious and they started reading journal articles even before college.

[00:03:45] But, so it has to be written. So you communicate to those folks that are like, oh, this is interesting and maybe I wanna pursue this. And then you're also writing for specialists that might not be. In our case, native English speakers. So then how do we then write [00:04:00] for folks to communicate with such enthusiasm so they get it?

[00:04:04] And this is just one form of medical writing, right? One form and then all the other types, including CME, which I have to be frank, I don't know a lot about except for I know. About, I don't do it for my living, but I, but there's a totally different way of writing that has to happen there.

[00:04:21] So I'm always thinking about humans and communication and what voices, what skills what essences do we bring to our work.

The Role of Psychotherapy in Writing

When you talk about meaning and essence and really getting to the heart of things, I think that's so important because. We talk about audience analysis a lot as medical communicators, right?

[00:04:41] Hope: Yeah.

[00:04:42] Alex: There are very few people who have a process for analyzing the audience that they are writing for and really getting that sense of what is it these nurses need to know teaching their patients how to [00:05:00] do a finger stick to get their. Blood sugar. We just don't think about that. We assume we know who the audience is and dive right in. So I love that is, one of the things that comes into the world that you're occupying and that you're teaching to to medical writers.

So you talked about academics in particular, and. one of the things that we've been seeing for the last few years is more academics and clinicians and researchers who are trying to find ways of leaving, professional organizations institutions see freelance medical writing as a way. do that. But I think one of the things that you've talked about, is that these folks don't necessarily see themselves as freelancers or independent professionals or, any other term that we could throw out there going on there? What is the mindset shift that people who are coming from. A very [00:06:00] clear, professional identity need to make in order to inhabit this world of freelance medical writing.

That's a really provocative question. The first thing I think of is trauma. I think this is, this has been my, pillar since I was in undergraduate because I hung out, of course, with graduate students when I was an undergrad because I was that kind of, square kid.

[00:06:22] But I was watching so many of my women friends just have their personalities get erased as they kept getting more degrees. And I've been seeing this throughout my entire life and I see this on LinkedIn now. This is the thing that is fascinating.

[00:06:36] Disheartening to me because folks are like I've left academia and now I don't know what I'm doing. But it was a good experience and I just think about that. It's and you just got out of a really abusive relationship and you're trumpeting the value of that abuse. It's wait a second.

[00:06:55] So there's those parts. To the story that is really hard because [00:07:00] suddenly it's a grieving, when we think about becoming a doctor, when we think about becoming a scientist, those are things that we think about early. I wanna be a rocket scientist. That's like a kid idea, like being a baseball player.

[00:07:12] It's like you come up with those ideas when you're really small. So suddenly you're left at 35 with this resume of armor. That you have tried to maneuver in this really difficult, very competitive environment where the people that hold the positions that you want either have to retire or drop dead over their specimens for you to get that gig.

[00:07:41] And it's okay, so what happened? What happened? Like how did we totally go so wrong? So that's like one, one aspect of this. It's just like what does it mean to totally lose your identity?

[00:07:53] You have this solid identity that you formed really early in your life and suddenly there's, it doesn't exist [00:08:00] anymore. And in many ways, medical writing is a good job and it feels like a consolation prize. And it is like, how am I gonna make, so there's all of that grief

[00:08:11] just angst that you carry with the decision?

[00:08:16] It, yeah it's a toughie. And I liken it to when I was an undergraduate, I was realizing that I, I wasn't getting the grades to get into a clinical psych program. I lived in Boston and I really liked living in Boston. So I would, go do Boston things.

[00:08:31] All right, I could be home and studying and, but then there are folks that fall outta bed and they get A's, and it's okay. And I had to come to grips with, alright, maybe you're not gonna be a PhD. And I wanted to do that. And my advisor said to me, he's you could.

[00:08:43] Go to social work school and just become a therapist. And I'm telling you, it felt like somebody put a pin in my balloon and I remember calling my mother and apologizing to her. It's it looks like I'm not gonna be able to get a PhD.

[00:08:58] And she didn't have a [00:09:00] PhD. She was just like, really, you're feeling bad about this? 'cause suddenly it felt like this, the woman thing. It's oh I'm gonna do that social work thing, and I came to grips with this, and also I started realizing, oh, but it was a profession founded by women.

[00:09:14] And ah, I started operationalizing all the feminism around it and, it felt really mine and it also was the quickest path to do exactly what I wanted to do as a, as opposed to getting lost in the research space that I didn't really see a vision for. But, I came.

[00:09:31] To grips with that when I was 21, not after all the degrees and all of the experience and all of just the battering and the ego shifting that happens and also just all the frigging knowledge.

And I think that's one of the reasons why, you know, folks from academia and obviously clinical care as well and researchers, see medical writing as a good place to land because it's somewhere they can use all their knowledge in a, fairly straightforward way, so [00:10:00] everything that you've said as a former academic completely resonates with me.

[00:10:05] I carted around my undergraduate notes as well as all my thesis notes for a decade before I got rid of them, I shredded them. And doing that was, I cried. was like shredding an identity. It took me a very long time To not be an academic so there's that. And then the other thing that you said that really resonated is I've never heard anyone actually talk about this as trauma, but as soon as you said it, I thought, oh yeah, I know.

[00:10:34] You're absolutely right.

[00:10:35] Perhaps not for everybody, but there is a form of trauma that many people, many women in particular, can experience in academic context because you are, you're not made, you're not fit for purpose. You're, you're, it's a male mold you're trying to squeeze yourself into it. and. There comes a point where it's normalized, but it's not normal for sure. So thank you for putting in those terms. 'cause I think [00:11:00] that's gonna be really helpful to so many listeners who are former academics who carry around this burden with them of thinking that somehow they have failed when in fact they have absolutely not.

And that's part of the reason why I almost hesitate to use the word trauma, because suddenly, it's not necessarily that, that you have done anything wrong. And it's also not that you're a victim of this, right? These are the spaces that, people run to therapy because they feel like they're, they're deficient.

[00:11:33] And it's no, actually this is like a really interesting strength. And then how do we not pathologize all of that experience, how do we then say, all yeah, this was, this is grief, this is an existential crisis. But then how do we then figure out like where our talents, where our strengths where our areas of natural genius still lie, right?

[00:11:54] Those are the places to build from.

[00:11:57]

[00:11:58] Entrepreneurial Mindset and Habits

So let's shift to entrepreneurial habits because when we see from some kind of professional background coming into the freelance medical writing world, whatever that looks like, whether it's regulatory or patient education or CME or health writing to consumer health, all those things we are talking about a process and a journey and an adjustment. And people often struggle with the language they use to describe themselves. Freelance, writer, solopreneur, independent contractor, entrepreneur. the terminology matter? Let's just start there.

I recently heard the Ultra-Preneur. I thought that was fun. That was like, all right, yeah let's go there. I don't even know what those are. That's like influencers. I don't know what it, what are they're people with opinions or they're people that are building businesses.

[00:12:44] The way that I think about about, mindset and I came up, again, speaking of the eighties, I came up before positive psychology was, anything that people cared about I'm okay, you're okay. Was pop psych, and that was the seventies. And it's we need something a little bit more.

[00:12:58] And everything came into [00:13:00] this like pathology of stuff, like looking at abnormal psychology and of course that. Frankly, that's fascinating. It's interesting, it's bizarre and, a little scary, but as we think about who we are let's go back to academics, people that have big ideas, right?

[00:13:16] I don't care if it's a big idea that gets educated out of you. There's like this propensity to have a big idea. I think that there might be some discomfort with what it means to be worth something. I think that is like one of those residual things. It's academics, you're in it for the knowledge.

[00:13:35] You're in it because it's a comfortable life. It's a stable life. Whereas if you're a business owner, then that carries all sorts of things with it and in my experience, folks that prize education are not the same people that prize business building. Those two things, for whatever reason, in at least contemporary American culture or western culture, are [00:14:00] just not equated.

[00:14:02] So there's already a rift right there,

[00:14:04] there's four ways of thinking that I see that I can actually measure with the work that I do that every entrepreneur has. And a lot of people believe that they have two, first off. There's a propensity to break rules. And if you think about anybody that's in a lab, all we're trying to do is figure out the next right thing.

[00:14:25] And that is not going with the flow that is not going along to get along. It's asking the question. It's saying what do we need to do here? And why are we doing it this way? 'cause that's. Stupid. Like why, again, like the washing of hands between giving birth, like that whole, thing.

[00:14:42] It's oh gee, why is, why are all these women dying of sepsis? Oh, maybe if we just use a little soap and water, maybe we'd I don't know, have some mothers to take care of the new babies. Hey, wow, what an idea. And that's whereas the way it used to be was. You just do it the way we do it.

[00:14:59] No, [00:15:00] so that's number one, breaking rules. Number two is there's a questioning of authority. 80% of independent thinkers question authority because it doesn't matter where you went to school. It doesn't matter who your father is, you're an idiot. There, there's those types of things.

[00:15:18] Entrepreneurs would rather follow people that walk their talk than people that just show keep citing where they went to school or keep citing their resume. And this is the measure that I just really love there's challenges with this stuff, of course, and I'll get into those in a minute.

[00:15:33] But then the third way that entrepreneurs, 97% of entrepreneurs. Are obsessive thinkers, and it doesn't mean that they are obsessive compulsive, but it means that thinking is effortless. And anybody who has the wherewithal to finish their PhD love to frigging think like, no problem with thinking at all.

[00:15:56] And and that is just, again, there's always the new idea, there's the best [00:16:00] idea. There's the losing track of time. There's the waking up in the middle of the night with the pad next to your bed. There's the shower insights, there's the just one more things syndrome that is consistent. And again, entrepreneurs, scholars

[00:16:14] same cut of the jib, and then the fourth is this ability to vividly visualize this. I see. With, again, very creative people, inventors, entrepreneurs, we're always thinking we can imagine the future so perfectly that we can almost taste it.

[00:16:37] And each one of these ways of thinking as, as delightful as they are, they do have some dark underbellies, right? And this is where stuff when you work for yourself, you really realize there aren't these structures around you to reign you in, say in academia, right?

[00:16:54] There's all sorts of bureaucracy in those types of places that alright, yeah, you might have this great idea, [00:17:00] but you have to submit the grant when it's due. You can't just keep working until the stuff is perfect. There's those types of limiters, but when you work for yourself, there's no limiters.

[00:17:11] There's no rules. That's part of the reason why you went on your own, right? It's ah I'm sick of the rules. I'm traumatized by these rules. I don't wanna have anything to do with these people that are trying to, hold me down. I don't know who I am, but I'm gonna sing, man. So first off, it's like figuring out which rules actually make sense, which ones you can live with. Do you need to pick a fight about everything? Same thing with questioning authority. It's like you don't wanna get mad at people that are really just trying to help you. That's a tough lesson for many of us who like to express our opinions about things and feel compelled. And we also just might reject things out of hand because of who the message came from, right?

[00:17:51] There.

[00:17:51] Alex: hands up. I recognize that.

And the thing that I love about this questioning authority thing though is that all of my clients they are able to shift this one [00:18:00] so fully and most quickly into a balanced way of thinking because it's not that you don't question things, but you realize that there's more to the puzzle than your own opinion in it, and you really wanna get stuff done.

[00:18:11] The Importance of Collaboration

[00:18:11] Hope: So collaboration suddenly becomes something that's really important. When we work for ourselves. And I find that this one balances out really quickly with most of my clients.

[00:18:22] Obsessive Thinking and Its Challenges

[00:18:22] Hope: And then there's the obsessive thinking and the worst thing that can happen with this is you just lose track of time and you have a need to be Right.

[00:18:30] You lose your sense of humor.

[00:18:31] It's like there's nothing wrong in and of itself being an effortless thinker. You're coming up with ideas, you're thinking outside the box. You're seeing things that other people aren't seeing. That's beautiful. It's only when we, don't wanna listen to anybody else's ideas.

[00:18:48] That gets to be very challenging even when we work for ourselves, there's a lot of ideas that we have to accommodate.

And so what I'm hearing is that, there are four habits that people who work for themselves can [00:19:00] productively cultivate, but there's a flip side to those

[00:19:02] Hope: Always a flip side.

[00:19:03] Alex: Aware of, and you've talked about your clients. Who are your clients and how do you work with them?

[00:19:09] Working with Women in Science and Medicine

I work primarily with women in science and medicine. The thing about folks that work in this coaching world, and even therapists too, we're always trying to work on the things that stem from our families of origin, right?

[00:19:18] And my mother's a chemist, so gee, gee, I can't imagine why. I would end up wanting to work with, really brilliant women aside from, I don't know, grew up around some really brilliant women. I was talking to someone today one of my clients today.

[00:19:32] And she graduated really high in her class as a high schooler. She was in the top five and she couldn't say that with any relaxed way. She felt really constricted, just like thinking about I was a smart girl. I was like one of the smartest girls in my school.

[00:19:49] And it was just like so hard for her to say her kids don't know that, and she's got an md she's really, very accomplished in my mind, and, but just like those [00:20:00] types of things, it's yeah, so you're brilliant. And what it carries sh a cone of shame, right?

[00:20:07] Alex: So potentially lots of things going on there in terms of, family of origin

[00:20:11] Hope: Yeah.

[00:20:12] Cultural Influences on Women's Self-Perception

And what the, kind of culture maybe in general, but I think in particular, American culture, white American culture does for women is that sense of everything about white American culture is working to make women feel small.

[00:20:30] Hope: Yes.

[00:20:31] Alex: and I think that, one of the things that I hear from women in particular who find their way into to CME, and again, these are, women of science, women who've worked as clinicians, researchers, so on journalists as well, is. And I think you, you touch on this is this idea that, oh, I need some permission.

[00:20:50] I need somebody to give me permission to show up and do what it is I feel in my core somewhere that I have a [00:21:00] desire to do, I need to do, I want to do because it's part of who I am in the world.

[00:21:06] But we're and I'm gonna say we, because I know that's been part of my experience. I'm looking for who can give me permission to do this?

[00:21:12] Who's gonna give me the green light

[00:21:13] Yeah, it's okay to do that thing that you're thinking about

[00:21:16] Hope: right.

[00:21:17] Alex: an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a freelance writer, creator,

[00:21:23] Hope: Yeah.

[00:21:25] Alex: is that something that shows up in your world? And if so, do you approach it?

It's really interesting 'cause I think that there's again one of these things in American culture that, we have to fix what's broken and all, all I can really do, especially when I'm thinking about, for example, this one client who just couldn't, couldn't feel proud.

[00:21:46] Or even,

[00:21:46] Alex: keep pointing to your throat

[00:21:48] Hope: I know.

[00:21:48] Alex: I'm, what I'm seeing there is, oh yes, there's a constriction there

[00:21:52] Hope: Yeah.

[00:21:52] Alex: as physical as

[00:21:54] Hope: Yeah,

[00:21:54] Alex: metaphorical,

[00:21:55] Hope: absolutely.

[00:21:56] Alex: what you're talking

[00:21:57] Hope: Yeah.

The Role of Self-Awareness and Body Work

And I do a lot of body work with, and [00:22:00] it's not about releasing, it's not about detoxing, it's not about it's actually recognizing that all of these ways of thinking, all of these responses, somatic responses are adaptive. They have kept us alive,

[00:22:14] In these very difficult social situations.

[00:22:20] So a lot of it is like, how do we then love those parts of us that we are ashamed of? How do we love or at least send some kind of, benign energy to just like these self concepts that might not be. As, I don't know, socially appropriate. I don't know. But, and, but again, it's like we, we spend so much time, the thing that nobody ever wants to name in American culture is how much shame we have.

[00:22:46] All the slaughtering, all the reasons that we're on this freaking continent at all is just

[00:22:51] Alex: Yeah.

[00:22:51] Hope: pretty. Bad mojo. Okay. Just like terrible mojo. And part of me feels glad that I'm like a later immigrant. It's yeah, none of that stuff was [00:23:00] happening. My people were just, dirt farmers in Italy that, got tired of farming dirt, but also to encounter, to work through that. That's like an intergenerational thing. There's certainly, that's not the immediate work I do with people, of course, but it's always part of just my thinking because the immediate part of the work is we're just like trying to figure out how do I not chew my kids' head off today?

[00:23:19] How do I not feel so crappy about myself that I can't even pay attention to what my spouse needs today. How is that too much for me? And I signed on to this, so yeah. A lot of it is like, how do we then just recognize and recognize that we have so many parts of ourselves that, that are okay, that they're not perfect.

You've talked about and maybe I'm imagining this, going back to the top of our conversation where we were talking about professional identity and all the things that we wrap around us to solidify that identity and keep it in place. The armor that we wear the degrees [00:24:00] the alma mater, the grades, the papers published all the fellowships, the things. But when we step out of that context and into working for ourselves, those things don't matter so much. What does matter and how can we cultivate those things that do matter in entrepreneurial. Solopreneur independent, business owning kind of context?

It's this showing up without having to prove I think that there's those consistencies. Before this call, we were talking a little bit about just being consistent, showing up doing what we're agreeing to, and that, that sounds just like the craziest thing, but I hear it over and over again.

[00:24:45] It's half of this is just showing up. I think also, self-awareness, knowing what your limits are and being okay with that and also knowing that you can push, and it's not about pushing for the sake of pushing, it's about just [00:25:00] knowing that we benefit from a certain level of eustress, the not distress, but the positive challenge that we want just to be better.

[00:25:08] If we are obsessive thinkers and we're able to vividly visualize what we want to have happen, then. Why not? Why not figure out how do you dial it back to figure out the next best action? Always knowing what the next best action is, and if we're too lost in the fantasy or too lost in the thinking or too lost in our process we sometimes can't get perspective on what we need to do next.

[00:25:35] And a lot of that comes down to really listening in. It's does it make sense for me to do this?

[00:25:39] Does it make sense for me to push on this? And if we're not quiet in ourselves, if we're not noticing where we're feeling these things in our body, when our breath gets shallow, or when we're starting to rush around, or when we're just looking for a distraction, not that you don't do those things, please do what you gotta do to like chill and work through [00:26:00] it, but also come back and realize it's okay.

[00:26:02] I just need a walk right now. Yep. I can't think about this right now. Too much. Five minutes. I'm just gonna go change scenery. Look at the birds for a minute, that kind of thing. So yeah, permission. Yes, that's it. Gets down to permission.

[00:26:15] Alex: And self-awareness.

Meditation and Mindfulness Practices

As a yoga teacher, I'm super aware that self-awareness piece is so challenging for people because it's a practice. It's not something that you can do. periodically or sporadically or, once in a while it is, I believe it is something that you do have to practice and there are lots of different techniques to help you practice self-awareness, whether it's breath based or some other body based technique or mindfulness. But having some kind of practice that does allow you to, and regularly invite you to reflect. To notice to be aware of what's going on. Because I think one of the things I see and what I'm hearing and what you're saying is that people and women especially, we just stuff all that stuff [00:27:00] down.

[00:27:00] We're not paying attention to what our bodies are telling us. We are not trusting what our bodies are telling us. When a lot of the time, these physiological. Things that are going on that show up in our gut, our heads, our throats our aching limbs are really key pieces of information that we can use to, take a step back, slow down, really focus on why is this showing up now and what do I need to do about it?

[00:27:27] And sometimes the doing something about it is physical. Yeah. Go and see your. General practitioner, get a checkup. but some of it is, Yeah. you're going too fast, girl. Just dial it down. Take care of yourself.

And our minds. Again, are so frigging active. There's this, there's, the concept of monkey mind, right? And it's I was fortunate. Like the first psych class I had Alex in college. First semester. First day of school. First day of school.

[00:27:55] This is, this was destined for me. It was taught by. This guy [00:28:00] who practiced transcendental meditation, and what he did is he taught us tm. He said, this is what your brain can do. And so like the first freaking day, I wasn't getting drunk in co I was frigging meditating since I've been 18.

[00:28:11] That was like the biggest gift I think I got from my education. It's just yeah, no, this is what our brains can do. It made such a huge difference in my world and my worldview, and it's like any practice that the more you do it, the more automatic it becomes similar to the more you recognize that, oh, this thing is gonna prompt me, or trigger me to behave and, get an anxious, oh, this client, I'm gonna, if you know that going in, if you feel exhausted. After talking to a client, realize that the first or second time, and then, okay, I gotta prep myself.

[00:28:45] And I still might feel really crappy when I get off the call with them, but at least I know and each time that you prep yourself, you're gonna go in with a different attitude. You're gonna go in with a different frame of mind. You're gonna go in with more openness and knowing that they're not gonna steamroll [00:29:00] you.

[00:29:00] And you're gonna be able to just recover quicker, more often, and with greater ease.

[00:29:07] Alex: You'll get to baseline more quickly. I love HeartMath actually for those kinds of interactions

[00:29:11] Hope: yeah.

literally take two minutes and just focus on your heart space as though you were breathing in and out of your heart space. It's breath based, but it's it's slowing your Heart.

[00:29:21] rate down. I feel like we've covered a lot of territory and we've ended up talking about meditation and micro actions, practices that we can actually build into our day to help with that sense of permission to help with that sense of showing up.

[00:29:38] Practical Tips for Freelance Writers

[00:29:38] Alex: If there are freelance writers listening today who are interested in taking one or two immediate small actions to strengthen their business mindsets, would you recommend?

Number one I always recommend free writing. That is like a big thing, especially among writers. I'm always amazed at the number of writers that don't write. [00:30:00] So I would say, set a timer for 10 minutes and just write, I remember. And just write, I remember. 'cause again, it's about structuring your mind's thoughts.

[00:30:08] And it's not meditation, right? You get, 'cause I've had many people just revile against, oh, meditation, I don't wanna do that. Whereas writing and then they say can I use my computer? It's no. It's about bringing it in the body. Get a pen, get a fast pen, get a notebook. They sell 'em at your local bookstore, they sell 'em, whatever.

[00:30:26] You can get some really cool and just write for 10 minutes, just I remember, and just free write. that's the one thing. And it doesn't really necessarily have anything directly to do with your business, except it is honing your thinking. It is honing your thinking. It is allowing you to access vocabulary that you wouldn't access just upon speaking.

[00:30:46] 'cause you have a second to just write the word and then you can think about the next word and you can change your mind before it comes outta your pen. So I'm a big fan of that. The second is is notice when [00:31:00] you use the word BUT. notice, that use 'cause that signifies hitting the brakes.

[00:31:06] If you can switch it to, and that's great. If you don't need to say that part of the sentence, great, but start noticing all the buts.

[00:31:16] Alex: I love that. It's a trick word. Just like just is.

[00:31:20] Hope: Yeah let's stop apologizing or hedging our bets and just be direct.

[00:31:24] Yeah, great. I love that. You love that you critique the just as well. That's terrific.

It's a big one. Where can people find you hope?

[00:31:32] Hope: Hope lafferty.com. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm all over LinkedIn. I guess that's the easiest way. So Hope Lafferty two Fs.

[00:31:40] Alex: Do you have anything coming up that might be of interest to write medicine listeners?

[00:31:45] Hope: Oh, sure. Yeah. I have free sessions all the time. I'm always doing like freelance fast track. That's one of my signature talks that I just basically tell you everything that you don't necessarily think about or might wanna think about to start your [00:32:00] freelance business.

[00:32:00] And it doesn't have anything to do with getting your LLC, it has everything to do with how do you actually figure out like what you need to do in your work to build the business part beyond the writing and beyond the science. So I have those all the time. And then I've got this three day virtual immersion experience that's coming up at the end of September, which is the freelance accelerator, and that's at hope lafferty events.com.

[00:32:23] As we wrap up today's conversation, here are three key takeaways I want you to hold onto first. Leaving academia or clinical practice can feel traumatic, but it doesn't define you. There's work to be done for sure, to reframe this transition as a source of resilience and strength. Second, thriving as a freelance medical, or CME writer isn't just about skill.

[00:32:50] It's about cultivating entrepreneurial habits and mindsets that support both your craft and your business. And third, [00:33:00] small consistent practices like free writing or simply noticing when you use the word but, or just can rebuild confidence and keep you moving forward. So here's one action I think you can take right now.

[00:33:14] Grab a notebook and start with the phrase I remember. Write for five minutes without stopping. You might be surprised at what surfaces and how it helps you reclaim your voice. Next week we'll explore crafting patient facing education in tandem with clinician continuing medical education. Thanks for listening to Write Medicine.

[00:33:38] Until next time, keep writing with purpose and keep charting a path that feels truly your own.