who "owns" a case to write up?

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velouria

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i'm a medicine resident rotating on radiology and just saw a really cool medicine case i'd like to write up & try to get published. the patient is admitted to a surgical service. technically i wasn't involved, i just happened to be around when the films were brought up.
so, if i were to pursue this write up, would i have to talk with:
1. the radiology attending
2. the surgery attending
3. a medicine attending/mentor
4. none of the above?
in other words, who "owns" this case? do i have to get anybody's permission? presumably nobody else wants to write it up, but i can't say for sure.
thanks for any advice

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i'm a medicine resident rotating on radiology and just saw a really cool medicine case i'd like to write up & try to get published. the patient is admitted to a surgical service. technically i wasn't involved, i just happened to be around when the films were brought up.
so, if i were to pursue this write up, would i have to talk with:
1. the radiology attending
2. the surgery attending
3. a medicine attending/mentor
4. none of the above?
in other words, who "owns" this case? do i have to get anybody's permission? presumably nobody else wants to write it up, but i can't say for sure.
thanks for any advice

The pt was admitted to surgery so I assume it's a surgical case. You may want to talk to the surgery attending about it. And like what was suggested to you, if it involves the film, you'll also want to get the radiology attending involved as well.

You're in a teaching institution so I would get those two attendings involved. You can write it up and they'll review it or give you some input. You'll still be first author. It is always nice to have collaborative effort with other departments. At least this is the polically correct way to play in academia. :eek:

Just my 0.02.
 
Make sure you contact the primary attending and any pertinent consultants who were involved with the case. Do this early on. Make sure they don't know of anyone else who wants to write it up. Once you have their blessing, write it up and give it to them for review.

I agree with the previous poster that the admitting attending should be the first person to ask, since that patient belongs to her/him. However, I've seen a couple case reports get stolen by residents/fellows from consulting services who were working on the manuscript on the sly. It's shady and underhanded, but if they are the first ones to publish it, you're the one who gets screwed.
 
typhoonegator said:
...but if they are the first ones to publish it, you're the one who gets screwed.

I've heard this (and seen this posted) numerous times..."once it's published your screwed, S.O.L., or otherwise not getting a publication."

But, how exactly is this enforced? Hear me out before clicking the "reply" button. If somebody writes this up for an abstract at a local/national meeting, it's not always searchable on PubMed. How would they prevent the same case getting presented numerous times? (not including local --> national meeting). I've written up interesting cases I ran across while working on a retrospective case series...there's no way I could possibly know if it's ever been presented if I can't find it in PubMed.

Further, if it's "slyly" written without your knowledge...it may be in the approval process so long that yours gets in print first (or vice versa).

There are fewer and fewer venues for case reports, so maybe this is a null point, but I agree, it's always polite to state your intentions to whom it may concern.
 
Wow. I never knew it was this complicated. I thought if you had an interesting case then you write it up. Can't a resident write up a case without an attending involved?

If someone would be nice enought o post what it takes to write up a case, that would be great. Our program actually asks us to write at least one case up. I've just been too swamped with daily work to even deal with it
 
The only person who really 'needs' to be on the paper is the attending who supervised the care of the patient in question. Someone can contribute substantially to a manuscript without actually participating in the writing or the literature review. In this case, the attending's intellectual contribution to the case unfolds during the natural course of the patient's care. To exclude the attending as an author would be use her intellectual contribution without proper attribution.

If you want to write it up as a case report, go talk to the attending and ask if she has any intention of preparing a case report. If so, "can I help you with it?" If not, "do you mind if I start writing it up? While I'm in the process of doing so, I expect that I could us a lot of help. Do you think you might have time to supervise me as senior author?" With regards to other potential authors, it would be good to have the conversation up front. If you think you can write the paper by yourself and you don't need help from anyone else, then "I think I can handle the paper by myself with your supervision. But do you think there are other people you think we should invite to be on the paper as well?"

-AT.
 
Wow. I never knew it was this complicated. I thought if you had an interesting case then you write it up. Can't a resident write up a case without an attending involved?

If someone would be nice enought o post what it takes to write up a case, that would be great. Our program actually asks us to write at least one case up. I've just been too swamped with daily work to even deal with it

Nah, I definitely think you need to talk to the attending. At the least, they'll be able to give you advice as to A) whether it's even worth your time, and B) feedback once you start writing it. From what I've seen, there's definitely a hierarchy, where senior residents have priority over juniors, etc. Even some junior attendings might want in on the action if they don't have a lot of publications under their belt.
 
Nah, I definitely think you need to talk to the attending. At the least, they'll be able to give you advice as to A) whether it's even worth your time, and B) feedback once you start writing it.

c) the order of authors


need to clarify at the beginning of the process who is going to be 1st author. In the situation described by the OP, it should be the resident.

Other posters have mentioned that you (the OP) would be the first author, but you need to explicitly clarify this with the attending
 
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sheeeeesh...i really thought all you had to do was write a case up...
if you dont id the patient, who would know to which attending it "belonged"?
order of authors--seriously? can't we just do it alphabetically?
oh...i have miles to learn, right?:laugh:
 
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