Abstract
Introduction
Pediatric surgery fellowship is considered one of the most competitive subspecialties
in medicine. With fierce competition increasing the stakes, publications and first
authorship are paramount to the success rate of matching. We analyzed Electronic Residency
Application Service applications for verification of authorship to determine rate
of misrepresentation.
Methods
After institutional review board approval, the bibliographies of fellowship applications
from 2007–2009 were reviewed to allow time for publication. Only peer-reviewed journal
articles were evaluated. A Medline search was conducted for the article, by author
or by title. If the article could not be found, other authors and journal were used
as search parameters. If the article was still not found, the website for the journal
was searched for abstract or manuscript. Finally, an experienced medical sciences
librarian was consulted for remaining unidentified articles. Differences between misrepresented
and accurate applications were analyzed, including: age, gender, medical and undergraduate
school parameters, advanced degrees, other fellowships, number of publications, first
author publications, American Board of Surgery In-Training Examination scores, and
match success.
Results
There were 147 applications reviewed. Evidence of misrepresentation was found in 17.6%
of the applicants (24/136), with 34 instances in 785 manuscripts (4.3%). Manuscripts
classified as published were verified 96.7% of the time, were not found in 1.4%, and
had incorrect authors or journal in less than 1% each. “In press” manuscripts were
verified 88.3% of the time, 6.4% could not be found, and 4.3% had an incorrect journal
listing. Number of publications (P = 0.026) and first author publications (P = 0.037) correlated with misrepresentation. None of the remaining variables was significant.
Conclusions
The pediatric surgical pool has a very low incidence of suspicious citations; however,
authorship claims should be verified.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 09, 2013
Accepted:
April 17,
2013
Received in revised form:
April 9,
2013
Received:
January 8,
2013
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
