Jill of All Trades: Recognizing Jill Shuman's AMWA Leadership

Her LinkedIn profile may limit her professional roles to “pharma librarian, information professional, and copyright specialist,” but anyone lucky enough to know Jill knows she is truly a Jill of All Trades. Her long and diverse involvement with AMWA speaks to her passion for furthering the field of medical writing. And although she recently stepped down from the New England Chapter Executive Committee, she assures us that the AMWA mission remains close to her heart.

Finding her professional niche

Despite her long career in medical writing and health information sciences, Jill Shuman did not set out to be a scientific writer. But, she is lucky to have both a scientific and creative mind. Mix in her healthy dose of curiosity, common sense, and a love of writing, and you have a recipe for a successful career.

After completing her BS from Simmons College, she simultaneously obtained an MS and MPH from the University of Massachusetts in biochemistry and nutrition. Never one to shirk from an academic challenge, Jill says she pursued double science degrees to keep professional options open. She could sit for the licensing exam to become a registered dietitian, but she also could pursue a career as a research scientist if she changed her mind.

And change her mind, she did. Jill remembers that she “was a dietitian for a very miserable couple of years.” Encouraging behavior change in others, especially when it comes to eating and nutrition, is never easy. As a result, Jill struggled in her early professional years.

Fortunately for Jill, her academic forecasting paid off. With her dual science degrees, she could transition away from tough conversations about diets to what had always been her passion—writing. “From the time I was a little kid, I had written stories on my bedroom walls. I just really enjoyed writing and reading. And then I discovered that there was actually a job in medical writing where I could do both things that I really like…science and writing!”

AMWA ignites her passion for medical writing and mentoring

It was only after she joined AMWA, however, that Jill began to find jobs. As a result, Jill credits AMWA for “jumpstarting” her successful career as a medical writer. It is in gratitude for this career jumpstart that Jill has dedicated years of service to AMWA.

After attending an annual meeting in Toronto in the 1990s with some of the “nicest, kindest, most generous groups of people I [had] ever met,” Jill started attending AMWA New England Chapter Meetings. It was not long before the enthusiastic Judy Linn soon talked her into volunteering. As Jill remembers fondly, “Judy saw something in me and said, ‘You know, you can do this. You’re a good thinker. You’re creative. You’re young. You’d be a real asset.’ And I didn’t know any better. So I said, “Sure, whatever.”

Jill attributes her professional success to her AMWA involvement: “The more active I got, the more people I met. There was a time for probably 15 years when every assignment I took on resulted from an AMWA connection.”

One of the professional roles Jill most enjoyed was that of Senior Editorial Manager at the Tufts University School of Nutrition Science and Policy. While at Tufts, she taught classes in the Tufts Nutrition School for 17 years as an adjunct instructor. Through her work at Tufts, Jill befriended, inspired, and mentored many other medical writers, including Michelle Badash and Laurie LaRusso.

Michelle credits Jill for contributing to the growth of the New England Chapter because “she is very gregarious and she’s really good at connecting like-minded people. She would bring in speakers from her own professional circles so members could network with them.”

Laurie believes that Jill’s most impressive talent is her ability to “show you the way to do more and different things with the skills that you have. And I feel like that’s the mentor piece that’s so valuable to so many people.”

While mentoring and teaching, Jill Shuman continued to expand her professional skills and experience. She’s worked at HealthGate, CME Outfitters, Hayes, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and the Copyright Clearance Center. She has become an expert in information access tools such as PubMed, Proquest, and Embase. Colleagues value her ability to compile bibliographic search results into complex, well-written, evidence-based reports. She subsequently became a Copyright Specialist and now assists researchers with the intricacies of copyright permissions, infringement, and how to share copyrighted materials compliantly.

AMWA and AMWA-NE Leader, Educator, Innovator, and Mentor

Within several years of her first meeting with Judy Linn, Jill was President of AMWA-NE. Her dedication to AMWA at the local and national levels has been long-standing and deep ever since. Chapter members remember fondly successful events and speaker forums, such as a Trivia Night, all conceived of and planned by Jill. Through the years, she has taught numerous workshops at national AMWA conferences that, according to attendees, are “super valuable workshops where she’s always sharing her insights and experience. Her workshops always get great reviews and are packed.”

After serving as President, she remained on the Executive Council for many years and was Chapter Treasurer for over 12 years. Jill was heavily involved with the administration of the New England Chapter’s Will Solimene Award for Excellence in Medical Communications, first awarded in 1991. Her service as a member of the AMWA-NE board earned her an AMWA fellowship and the Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence.

Now and into the Future

Jill’s role these days is running the biomedical library for the international pharmaceutical company, Takeda. Since 2015, Jill has redirected her intellectual curiosity and scientific mind to science librarianship.

Jill loves her this role because of “the work I do now running a biomedical library for the researchers at Takeda.…We’re all working on the same goal, and that is to find treatments for a variety of diseases. And there’s nothing more satisfying than that. Plus, I get to play with the coolest database and platforms. Right now I’m in the middle of projects involving artificial intelligence and large language models. So to me, it’s really fulfilling.”

While she may have officially stepped down from the Executive Council of AMWA-NE, Jill is not stepping away. Her current passions are mentoring younger medical writers and teaching them about copyright permissions. On May 17, 2023, Jill led an AMWA-wide seminar entitled “Demystifying the Copyright Conundrum: Literature Sharing, Open Access, and AI” because she believes “every single medical writer and biomedical communicator needs to know about how they share information.”

With retirement looming, Jill is beginning to explore new ways to keep busy. She adores spending time with her two granddaughters and sharing her love of books and reading with them. She also has some ideas for writing a children’s health book series, and more travel is definitely in her future. While not as large a presence in AMWA as in the past, she continues to share her knowledge by presenting webinars and virtual programs. We wish her well in her future endeavors and hope to see her at chapter functions throughout the upcoming years!