About me
I’m Jo, a freelance medical editor with 30 years’ experience in editing and publishing.
I work on medical and healthcare content of all kinds, helping clients make sure their material is clear, accurate, consistent and ready for its intended audience.
Sometimes that means a thorough copyedit. Sometimes it's a final proofread, a reference check or simply an experienced second pair of eyes on something important. I’m comfortable with complex, technical material and, after three decades in editing, very little fazes me – including tight deadlines and shifting schedules.
I’m naturally detail-focused. I like checking things, questioning things that don't quite make sense and spotting the small inconsistencies that are surprisingly easy to miss when you've been immersed in a document for weeks.
Who I work with
My clients include medical communications and education agencies, publishers, healthcare organisations, clinicians, researchers, expert witnesses and public-health teams.
I also work directly with writers and other professionals who simply need an experienced medical editor they can trust with their material.
Projects range from a few pages to large, complex publications, and I’m equally happy providing a final proofread or getting stuck into a more detailed edit.
A fresh pair of eyes
One of the most useful things an editor brings to a document is distance.
When you've written something yourself – or worked on it through several rounds of review – you know what it's meant to say. That makes it surprisingly difficult to see what is actually on the page.
I come to the material afresh. I notice the sentence that could be interpreted two ways, the terminology that changes halfway through, the claim that doesn’t quite tally with an earlier one, or the citation that doesn’t match the reference list.
Add medical knowledge and 30 years of editorial experience, and that's where I can be particularly useful: not simply correcting errors, but noticing when something doesn't quite add up.
My background
I’ve been editing and proofreading professionally since 1997.
I started out in technical proofreading and layout before moving into freelance copyediting and proofreading for book publishers. I began specialising in medical editing in 2009 and have since worked on an enormous variety of medical and healthcare material.
That includes more than 2,000 medico-legal reports, medical and healthcare books, medical communications and education across numerous therapy areas, and public-health publications for international public bodies.
Before all of that, I was a hairdresser. It's not the most obvious route into medical editing, admittedly. If you'd like the longer version of how I got from one to the other, you can read it here.
Why I enjoy editing
I've always been a reader – not just for work, but because it's what I naturally do. I'll read in queues, waiting rooms, on trains or whenever I have a few spare minutes.
Perhaps that's partly why editing suits me. When you spend that much time with words, you become very aware of how much difference a small change in structure, phrasing or punctuation can make.
I still get satisfaction from finding the thing that everyone else has missed – or taking a complicated piece of medical writing and making it noticeably clearer without changing what the author wanted to say.
Even after all these years, I genuinely enjoy the work.
Qualifications
-
BSc (Hons) Life Sciences (human biology)
-
DipHE Health Sciences
-
CertHE Natural Sciences
-
CertHE Social Sciences
-
DipHE Creative Writing
THE OPEN UNIVERSITY
-
Medical Editing
-
Copyediting
-
Editing with Word
CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF EDITING AND PROOFREADING (CIEP)
-
Editing
-
Author Queries
-
Adobe Tools for Editors
PUBLISHING TRAINING CENTRE (PTC)
It was an absolute pleasure to work alongside Jo. Her skills in medical copyediting and proofing are second to none. She has an excellent work ethic and was extremely efficient in what was a very busy and pressured environment. I would not hesitate in recommending Jo. Anyone working with her will benefit greatly from her skillset but perhaps even more so from being around her wonderful personality.
Gillian Smith, business owner at G.S. Virtual Assistants
Jo edits medico-legal reports for us and has done for many years. She works with our house style, is confident to make the decisions needed for the edit and has excellent proofreading skills. She is very organised, communicates well, and works to our deadlines. We are very happy to have her as part of our wider team.