Ann MacDonald has been a medical writer for more than 25 years. She is currently writing a book of narrative nonfiction that explores the way advocates, physicians, and nurses are improving recognition and treatment of sepsis, the leading cause of death in American hospitals.
She pays the bills by working as a freelance medical writer. Previously she held senior communications positions at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Before that, she worked as an editor at Harvard Health Publishing, the consumer health education division of Harvard Medical School. During that time, she wrote special health reports on various topics, launched the Harvard Annual Report on Prostate Diseases and spent four years as editor of the Harvard Mental Health Letter.
Earlier in her career, Ann worked as a writer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital, and served for two years as eastern regional director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
She has written three books with doctors and contributed to a fourth. Her articles on health and medicine have appeared in Stat, Newsweek, and other publications.
Ann earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Brandeis University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She is a member of the Authors Guild and the New England Science Writers. She is also a graduate of the GrubStreet Memoir Incubator, a competitive MFA-level program.
Ann MacDonald 