Abstract
A new approach to authorship: A farce since the dawn of time
The authorship issue has been a farce since the dawn of medical writing, simply because there are many in the medical profession who are unable to produce original work or synthesize texts attractive enough for publication; yet they are very good clinicians and are assets for their institutions. Accordingly, the ghost authorship arises and the process becomes self-explanatory. I personally do not understand the logic behind a stringent authorship criteria for qualification as an author. 1 What is more important for the industry? Is it a good scientist or a clinician, or rather a person with good imagination, application and excellent writing skills? Again, who is more important, a person with excellent surgical skills, or the one who has efficiently mastered the skills for passing a study through an Institutional Review Board, or obtain fat grants? Who came first - was it the clinician or the author? Only few of us are innovators. The combination of the above in a single person is not so common. So why not combine different people different skills?
I fail to understand the harm in including a person's name who may have contributed even intellectually in a study, or in preparation of a manuscript. One or two people always do the main job. Why not frame a policy to recognize their work in a way which is slightly better than at present? They may be given more credentials as principal authors through some policy which adequately defines and recognizes their contribution.
The pressure of ‘publish or perish’ can have devastating effects. The more stringent the law, the more dubious is the style to bypass it. It is time we understand the basic problem and adjust. In my opinion, a fair policy which recognizes the principal author is a better way to calibrate his credential rather than imposing sanctions for authorship on the other members of the team.
Footnotes
Competing interests
None declared