Trends in Academic “Ghost Publications” in Plastic Surgery Residency Applications: A 3-Year Study

Abstract

Background: Plastic surgery is an attractive specialty to medical students. Residency training programs have the luxury of selecting their trainees from the “cream of the crop” from United States medical schools. Because of the steep competition for PGY-1 integrated program positions, the temptation exists for applicants to falsify parts of their applications, particularly those parts that are difficult to verify. Methods: A retrospective analysis of the Integrated Plastic Surgery applications from the years (2010–2013) was done. Two reviewers manually and independently handsearched each of the articles in the databases (Medline, Scopus, Clinical trials, Google scholar) additionally, a specialized medical librarian corroborated. A ghost article was defined as the inability to find the listed applicant in the authorship list of the claimed article/abstract/chapter or the inability to find the submitted article. Misrepresentation was defined as a change in authorship order. Data were summarized and analyzed, generalized estimating equations model was used. SAS software, v9.4. Results: All 392 applicants were included, 159 (2010–2011), 120 (2011–2012), and 119 (2012–2013). The number of manually reviewed records was 2,124. “Ghost” authorship was found in 234 articles out of 2,124 (11.02%). The overall rate of “Ghost” authorship in applicants to our program was found to be 34.4%, 135 applicants and misrepresentation in 5 cases (1.28%). Conclusions: Ghost publications are present in Plastic Surgery applications, its trend is similar through the years, “protective” factors are: first authorship and published peer reviewed abstract/article.

The Presence of Ghost Publications Among Canadian Plastic Surgery Residency Applicants: How Honest Are Canadians?

“…Three previous studies have demonstrated that the rate of ghost publications in applicants applying to Plastic Surgery programs in the United States (US) varied widely from 2% to 14%. 4,11,12 There are several possible reasons that could account for the wide variability in rates of ghost publications between our study and the previous literature. The first might be how ghost publication is defined.…”

“…The first might be how ghost publication is defined. For example, Rodriguez-Unda et al, defined ghost publication as any publication where the author was not named in the authorship list or the publication was not found in the literature, 11 while Larson et al, defined it solely based on whether the publication existed or not. 4 Both studies included text books chapters and other non peer–reviewed publications.…”

“…While Larson et al, found that the rate of fraudulent publications among Plastic Surgery applicants to be 2%, 4 Chung et al and Rodriguez-Unda et al found an alarmingly high rate of 14% and 11%, respectively. 11,12 While the previous findings were all in the setting of American residency programs, publication misrepresentation among Plastic Surgery residency applicants has not been evaluated in Canada. Given that Plastic Surgery residencies are among the most competitive medical specialties, the primary goal of this study was to determine the prevalence of "ghost publications" among applicants to a single Canadian Plastic Surgery residency program and compare it to previous studies.…”

“…While Larson et al, found that the rate of fraudulent publications among Plastic Surgery applicants to be 2%, 4 Chung et al and Rodriguez-Unda et al found an alarmingly high rate of 14% and 11%, respectively. 11 , 12 …”

Mistakes, Misrepresentation, and Misunderstanding on Applications to a Canadian Diagnostic Radiology Residency Program

“…Previous studies have demonstrated varying rates of dishonesty or inaccuracies associated with the application process to several in-demand specialties. 10-19 Amongst these papers are some earlier studies with misrepresentation rates amongst applicants being as high as 34.1% for gastrointestinal fellowship in 1995, 34% for emergency medicine residency in 2002, and 20.4% for emergency medicine residency in 1995–1996. 17-19 Specific to medical imaging are misrepresentation rates of 16%, 11%, and 4% of applicants claiming publications when applying to radiology or radiology fellowship programs in 1998, 2000, and 2013 papers, respectively.…”