Editorial
Evan D Kharasch, Michael J Avram, Brian T Bateman, J David Clark, Deborah J Culley, Andrew J Davidson, Timothy T Houle, Yandong Jiang, Jerrold H Levy, Martin J London, Jamie W Sleigh, Laszlo Vutskits. Authorship and Publication Matters: Credit and Credibility. Anesthesiology 2021 Jul 1;135(1):1-8. PMID: 34046664
Over the course of my career, I’ve authored over 200 original articles and book chapters and mentored hundreds of anesthesiologists, pediatricians, and intensivists, many of whom went on to become clinician scientists and/or leaders in their respective fields. Along the way, in the spirit of my own mentors, Drs. Jack Downes(1), Dick Traystman, and Mark Rogers(2), I’ve done my best to share and impart the joys of discovery and the responsibilities and accountability, really the ethics, of scientific research. One of the most rancorous and frustrating experiences of being a mentor and authoring and submitting manuscripts to a(ny) journal is assigning authorship and determining an author’s position in the manuscript’s author choo choo train. “Who is the first or last author”? “Who and what is a “co-first” author”? “Who contributed what to the conception, design and analysis of a study”? “Who actually wrote the first and last drafts”? “These are my patients, or I recruited patients, or you, the author, are in my Department/Division and this research could not have happened without my administrative support, shouldn’t that count for authorship”? More often than not, once authorship is assigned, someone or many someones are pissed off for not being included as an author or their position in the author choo choo train. To provide some guidance, this editorial by Kharasch and the senior editorial staff of Anesthesiology, is a must read for anyone submitting to this or any journal.
Why does any of this matter? “Scholarly publications serve a dual purpose—one for which they were created and the other an unintended byproduct. The former is scientific communication, and the latter is use by institutions for assessment and reward. Authorship is used in science to communicate research findings to peers and the public, denote credit and responsibility, document personal accomplishment, and advance careers, while it is used outside science by institutions whose interests often differ, such as for promotion and tenure processes, metrics of faculty productivity, and ranking institutional programs and reputations”.3 In other words, in academic departments, paper authorship and position in the choo choo train is the “coin of the realm” for promotion, tenure, salary, etc. Thus, is it any surprise that in academic departments, authorship really does matter and that the number of authors in any published paper is exploding?
In my experience, many authors, often but not always men and/or senior faculty, over-inflate their contributions. On the other hand, women and/or junior faculty, often, but not always, downplay their roles and don’t fight to be first or last authors. Gift authorship is another common problem and to be honest, in the past I was guilty of this. “Gift (honorary, courtesy) authorship is offered from a sense of obligation, tribute, dependence, or respect to an individual who did not contribute to the work in return for anticipated benefit (e.g., a department chair) or to a junior in order to advance their career. This is perceived to be the most prevalent type of authorship fraud. Guest (celebrity, prestige, complementary) authorship is another problem and is granted in the belief that expert standing of the guest will increase the likelihood of publication or the credibility or status of the work or the author. This too is fraud.
Thus, these author disagreements and issues, like elections, have real consequences because they “can affect scientific integrity, reputations, wellbeing, team cohesion, and future collaborations”.(3,4) Further, younger members of a scientific team learn by observation. “Authorship misbehavior is learned behavior. Trainees learn it from their supervisors and from the ‘hidden curriculum’ of unethical practices” so being up front about all of this is vital.
This editorial is a roadmap describing the current rules of the road for the journal Anesthesiology and is a must read for anyone who is conducting or planning a research or really any publication project to be submitted to any journal. I’ve personally always found that discussing ALL of these issues up front with ALL of the players BEFORE a project even begins is the best approach, even though this does not always work out as I had hoped. Trying to sort this out when a project is nearing completion and a paper is being readied for submission is a recipe for trouble and hard feelings.
Myron Yaster MD
References
1. Mai CL, Schreiner MS, Firth PG, Yaster M: The development of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: an interview with Dr. John J. 'Jack' Downes. Paediatr.Anaesth. 2013; 23: 655-664
2. Mai CL, Firth PG, Ahmed Z, Rodriguez S, Yaster M: The development of a specialty: an interview with Dr. Mark C. Rogers, a pioneering pediatric intensivist. Paediatr Anaesth 2014; 24: 912-8
3. Kharasch ED, Avram MJ, Bateman BT, Clark JD, Culley DJ, Davidson AJ, Houle TT, Jiang Y, Levy JH, London MJ, Sleigh JW, Vutskits L: Authorship and Publication Matters: Credit and Credibility. Anesthesiology 2021; 135: 1-8
4. Smith E, Williams-Jones B, Master Z, Larivière V, Sugimoto CR, Paul-Hus A, Shi M, Resnik DB: Misconduct and Misbehavior Related to Authorship Disagreements in Collaborative Science. Sci Eng Ethics 2020; 26: 1967-1993