Medical Editor

Akron Children’s Hospital; Akron (OH); Hybrid; USD 80,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Akron Children’s Hospital is seeking a Medical Editor within the Department of Surgery to partner with surgical faculty, clinical investigators, and research staff. The role focuses on developing publication-ready manuscripts, abstracts, and presentations.

You will convert analyses and ideas into clear scientific narratives, ensure adherence to reporting guidelines, mentor trainees, and help position projects for regional, national, and international forums.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in a relevant field.
• Minimum two years of relevant experience.
• Strong scientific writing and editing skills.
• Experience with manuscript development and submission.
• Familiarity with reporting guidelines (STROBE, CONSORT, etc.).

Responsibilities

• Develop high-quality manuscripts, abstracts, and presentations.
• Guide investigators from idea to publication-ready work.
• Draft and strengthen manuscript sections (intro, methods, results, discussion).
• Translate findings into clear scientific language.
• Coordinate timelines, versions, and submission materials.
• Mentor trainees and staff in scholarly communication.
• Ensure adherence to journal guidelines and submission rules.

Skills

Scientific writing

Manuscript development

Literature reviews

Collaboration

Project management

Publication ethics

Data interpretation

Education

Bachelor's degree+

Master's degree preferred

Tools

EndNote

Zotero

Mendeley

Covidence

Job description

Full-time, 40 hours/week

Monday- Friday

8:30am-5pm

Hybrid remote (requires 6-12 days/month onsite in Akron)

Summary

This role is writing-facing and investigator-facing within the Department of Surgery: you will partner with surgical faculty, clinical investigators, trainees, biostatisticians, data scientists, and research staff to develop high-quality scientific manuscripts, abstracts, presentations, reports, and other scholarly products.

The primary focus of this position is manuscript and scientific content development. This includes helping investigators move from research idea, analysis output, or rough draft to a clear, well-structured, publication-ready scientific product. The Medical Editor will support the Department of Surgery's academic productivity by improving manuscript development, strengthening scientific narratives, organizing results, aligning content with journal or conference expectations, and helping investigators communicate the impact of their work.

This is not primarily a copyediting or formatting role. While the Medical Editor should have strong editing skills, the core responsibility is higher-level scientific writing, structure, synthesis, and manuscript development.

Responsibilities

• Partner with surgical investigators, trainees, biostatisticians, data scientists, and research staff to develop high-quality manuscripts, abstracts, presentations, research summaries, and reports.
• Support investigators in moving scholarly projects from research idea, analysis output, or rough draft through manuscript development and submission.
• Draft, revise, and strengthen manuscript sections, including introductions, methods, results summaries, discussions, limitations, conclusions, cover letters, and response-to-reviewer materials.
• Help investigators organize scientific arguments, clarify study rationale, interpret findings appropriately, and present results in a clear, publication-ready format.
• Translate statistical, analytic, and clinical findings into accurate scientific language while ensuring methods, results, tables, figures, and conclusions are aligned.
• Assist with abstracts and presentations for regional, national, and international surgical and research conferences.
• Conduct targeted literature reviews to support manuscript introductions, discussion sections, research concept development, and scholarly positioning.
• Help investigators identify appropriate journals, conferences, article types, reporting guidelines, and submission strategies.
• Ensure manuscripts and abstracts follow applicable journal, conference, and reporting requirements, including STROBE, CONSORT, PRISMA, CARE, SQUIRE, or other relevant guidelines.
• Coordinate manuscript timelines, version control, author input, revisions, submission materials, and related project follow-up.
• Maintain awareness of authorship standards, publication ethics, plagiarism prevention, conflicts of interest, and institutional policies related to scholarly work.
• Contribute to Department of Surgery research infrastructure and writing support by developing templates, workflows, checklists, publication tracking processes, and mentoring trainees, junior faculty, and research staff in scholarly communication.

Other information

Technical Expertise

• Strong scientific writing skills are required.
• Ability to develop manuscripts from outlines, analysis summaries, investigator notes, tables, figures, and rough drafts is required.
• Experience writing or supporting peer-reviewed manuscripts, abstracts, scientific presentations, or research reports is required.
• Familiarity with biomedical, clinical, surgical, pediatric, translational, outcomes, or health services research is preferred.
• Ability to understand and accurately describe study designs, statistical methods, clinical outcomes, limitations, and research implications is required.
• Familiarity with common reporting guidelines such as STROBE, CONSORT, PRISMA, CARE, and SQUIRE is preferred.
• Experience conducting targeted literature reviews using PubMed, Google Scholar, EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, Covidence, or similar tools is preferred.
• Strong ability to translate complex scientific and statistical concepts into clear language for clinical and research audiences is required.
• Excellent project management, organization, version control, and deadline management skills are required.
• Familiarity with journal submission systems, manuscript formatting requirements, reference management tools, and publication workflows is preferred.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work collaboratively with surgeons, trainees, statisticians, analysts, and research leadership are required.

Education and Experience

• Education: Bachelor's degree or higher in Biomedical Sciences, Public Health, Health Communication, English, Journalism, Clinical Research, or a related field required. Master's degree in a related field preferred
• Licensure: NA
• Certification: NA
• Years of relevant experience: minimum two years required
• Years of supervisory experience: NA

Full Time

FTE: 1.000000

Status: Fixed Hybrid