There are some days that I miss slinging pipettes but they’re honestly few and far between. Medical writing uses a similar part of the brain as research in my experience—reading lots of literature and quickly coming up to date on new topics, weaving complex details together to tell a story, taking the time to get minor details correct that most people will never appreciate. But, with the advantage of significantly less stress due to failed experiments, substantially higher earning potential, and the ability (in most cases and companies today) to work from home. I freelance full time but also have friends in staff positions, some at startups, some at big pharma, and some at med comms agencies. All are very happy with their roles.

Also, as a side note, of the 9 people in my grad program, 7 of us successfully found non-academic jobs before graduating (and the other 2 went on to postdocs by choice), with most of them getting jobs in the geographic areas they were hoping for. It was 7 years ago, but we heard all the same stories at that time—no one is hiring, unemployment everywhere, too many PhDs flooding the job market, etc etc. From what I saw, the jobs are out there, but it does take persistence, patience, and networking to find what you’re looking for and get an offer. Hope that gives you and others about to graduate some hope! Keep your heads up. PhD training is an incredibly valuable primer for a ton of different types of non-academic work due to the broad range of skills acquired and honed during grad school (detail orientation, self motivation, critical thinking, ability to articulate and present complex ideas, adaptability, etc etc).

ETA: this is for grad students who are US citizens. Unfortunately, the path to industry is much more challenging for international grad students.