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Letters to the Editor |
Department of Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging, Hospital Universitario de San Ignacio, Piso 2, Cra 7, No. 40-62, Santafe de Bogotá, DC, Colombia, e-mail: amorillo@javercol.javeriana.edu.co
Editor:
I read with great interest the letter by Drs Probyn and Asch in the May 2000 issue of Radiology (1) concerning the as yet ineffective new guidelines for authorship of articles published in Radiology. Many undeserving authors of scientific papers may still be recognized as actual contributors to an article although they do not meet any of the current well-known standards that have been devised and periodically updated by several of the most serious journals following International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria (2). The contrary is also true: Contributors who believe that they deserve authorship have been excluded (3,4).
Working in a university-based program does not guarantee that authorship policies are followed. It has not been uncommon that the members of my department who have contributed noticeably to research projects are excluded from authorship of articles written by those in other clinical departments, even when they conceived the project. Another frequent situation, already pointed out by Simon and Rose (5), is that in which the diagnostician, who may be the first or only one to solve a case, is not even acknowledged in an article written by others in reference to that same case.
With the current level of information available I believe that it is inexcusable for any member of an academic environment to fail to comply with or to claim to be unfamiliar with modern publication policies. As long as there are program or laboratory directors who are more interested in inflating their bibliographies (6) than in applying these rules, problems related to authorship will be recurrently reported. Policy changes such as the commendable ones recently established by Radiology will continue to show frustrating results, as described in the letter by Drs Probyn and Asch. Irresponsible co-authors are rarely sanctioned as they deserve (7). Even those dedicated to the development or follow-up of guidelines for research integrity have been involved in misunderstandings, to say the least, related to the ethicality of their own surveillance procedures (8). In my opinion, an excellent example of duplicate publication is that by Richard Horton and Richard Smith, who, on March 23, 1996, co-authored the editorials in the prestigious British Medical Journal (3) and The Lancet (4). Although their editorials are not identical and although there is a note in each informing readers of their similarity, I believe that Horton and Smith’s editorials are still a case of redundancy. Who watches over the watchers?
Detection of duplicate publication requires extensive police work that has been compared to practices used during the Inquisition (9). The availability of information can backfire against those of us concerned with these issues. With the wealth of information now available online, plagiarism may be easier to perform, as Ryan has reported (10).
Indeed, the rules are difficult to apply, and, in some cases, they may even be unrealistic. As long as there is subspecialization, authors might not be able to respond publicly regarding all that is written in their articles simply because some of the material submitted will not be within their scope, which is highly specialized. Such may be the case for statisticians, who have already considered a method for their inclusion as authors using criteria that, not surprisingly, use a mathematic approach (11). In 1993, the Association of University Radiologists’ Ad Hoc Committee on Standards for the Responsible Conduct of Research tried reconciling the rules with reality (12). Their interesting proposal might work at an academic departmental level, but problems can still be expected when the time comes to publish the results of responsibly conducted research, since these rules are not as strict as the current editorial policies of many journals, which have subscribed to the cited ICMJE requirements.
As the director of an academic program, I have long been interested in the issue of authorship, plagiarism, and related subjects. I am currently involved in a personal project in which I am trying to explicitly state the publication rules for all the research projects in which my department of radiology is involved. This is not a minor task, indeed, but it may be an initial step toward the local solution of a multifaceted situation. Policies such as the one Dr Proto describes in his response to Drs Probyn and Asch regarding the identification of author contributions are inspiring and archetypical. For those involved in academics, the time to attempt a solution to the dilemma of authorship is long overdue.
REFERENCES
Radiology Editorial Office, 1001 East Broad Street, Suite 310, Richmond, VA 23219, e-mail: proto@rsna.org
My thanks to Dr Morillo for the many insights with respect to the letter to the Editor by Drs Probyn and Asch (1) and my response (2). Regarding the comment that the editorials published in the British Medical Journal (3) and The Lancet (4) are an example of duplicate publication, I must respectfully disagree. Per the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals (5), I believe that these editorials fall under the category of acceptable secondary publication. For such to occur, a footnote is needed to inform the readers that the material has been published either in whole or in part. Such a footnote accompanies each of these editorials in both The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, as mentioned by Dr Morillo.
In the letter, Dr Morillo also points out that authors might have difficulty in responding to all that is written. This certainly is realized. Our author contributions information found on the first page of each original research article identifies the types of contributions made by each author and thus the areas of responsibility.
Clearly, Dr Morillo is highly committed to appropriate designation of an individual as an author. We commend Dr Morrilo for being dedicated to this important matter.
REFERENCES
This article has been cited by other articles:
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  A. V. Proto Radiology 2004--New Directions Radiology, January 1, 2004; 230(1): 3 - 5. [Full Text] [PDF]
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A. J. Morillo and B. C. Lentle Image License from RSNA: A New Threat to Responsible Authorship? [letter] * Dr Lentle responds: Radiology, August 1, 2003; 228(2): 593 - 594. [Full Text] [PDF]
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A. V. Proto Radiology 2003--The Constancy of Change Radiology, January 1, 2003; 226(1): 1 - 4. [Full Text] [PDF]
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A. V. Proto Radiology 2001-The Upcoming Year Radiology, January 1, 2001; 218(1): 1 - 2. [Full Text]
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