Authorship (and Corruption)

A surgeon and research fellow discuss authorship of a manuscript, hypothetically speaking. It goes something like this:

“Who should we put on the paper?”

“What about Dr. ‘so and so’?”

“No. They are already a full professor. Let’s add Dr. X. He is only an assistant professor.”

The research fellow knows that Dr. X has not contributed to the paper but he is in no position to object.

I do not know how often this happens, however I venture to say that it goes on too often. What did the 4th or 5th author on a surgical paper contribute? In complex studies I would agree that contributions may have been significant. Although, much of what I see published in the major CVT journals is not that complex. In fact, some of the more complicated portions of studies are now the incomprehensible statistics, but I do not know how often the statisticians are authors. Now, if a statistician does not deserve authorship, how is it that a surgeon that simply performed some cases get on the “by-line”.

Editors have made efforts to combat unmerited authorship. Consensus statements have been published; some journals request that authors state what they have contributed, specifically. Nevertheless, individuals still become authors with minimal or no effort on their part.

I will forget for a moment the reprehensible attitudes and behaviour that allow this to happen. What I will propose is a simple scoring system to evaluate the publications of an individual.

1. 2 points are given for 1st authorship; 1 point for 2nd authorship; and ½ of a point 3rd authorship.
2. Add 3 points for an RCT; 2 points for a comparative retrospective series or a large registry study; 1 point for a case series; and ½ for systematic reviews.
3. Multiply the points earned in 1 and 2 by the impact factor of the journal in which the article is published.

Case reports are not included. If a teaching point is to be made by a case report or image, this should be done for its own sake and the benefit of others.

The scoring system is simple, and arguably simplistic. It does not take into consideration the variability in the quality of RCTs, for example. Yet it is an attempt to fairly evaluate the quality of, and the contribution to, the publications by an author. By limiting the credit to only the first 3 authors, I am trying to eliminate those authors that may not have contributed significantly or at all. This latter point may be contentious, but it is an argument we still need to have.