Clinical Research Authorship Question

[OasisFTW]

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Hi,

I am spending the summer between my M1 and M2 years doing clinical research in derm. The project is expected to be completed by the end of the summer and I was wondering if the paper ends up getting published, is the doctor I am working with obligated to put my name on the paper as one of the authors? Or does it really depend on who you work with?

Thanks.

 

[typhoonegator]

That would depend on whether the work you performed for the project is worthy of authorship. If you did something that demonstrably furthered the project, then you deserve authorship.

Note, however, that deserving authors get left off papers all the time. No one is "obligated" to put you (or anyone else) on the paper. It might be rude or obnoxious or even wrong not to, but there are no publication police who are going to call your PI on it. As much as it might help you, publication helps grad students, post-docs, and faculty much more.

The best way to secure authorship is to a) write the paper, b) perform necessary experiments/analyses or contribute samples/data, c) contribute ideas or critical review to the project, or d) secure funding that allows the project to be completed. You probably won't be doing a or d, and you probably don't know enough yet to meaningfully perform the duties of c, so you are stuck with b.

 

[WellWornLad]

Agree with above, except that it works both ways. No one is obligated to put you on a paper unless you write it or fund it, but then again you may end up on papers you did absolutely no work for. I've been more or less forced to put people on papers I wrote who literally did no work and whom I never met - in the middle, of course, where contributions are dubious at best, but still...

 

[kaleerkalut]

Agree with above, except that it works both ways. No one is obligated to put you on a paper unless you write it or fund it, but then again you may end up on papers you did absolutely no work for. I've been more or less forced to put people on papers I wrote who literally did no work and whom I never met - in the middle, of course, where contributions are dubious at best, but still...

What determines if you will be first author or not?

 

[ArcGurren]

What determines if you will be first author or not?

My understanding is that first author is usually the person for whom the main corpus of the paper was the brainchild of, as well as the "last" author. The ones in between (2nd, 3rd, etc) are usually people who worked on it peripherally.

Agreed with the above. You might have a dickish PI (as I once did) who'll refuse to put you on the paper so that it makes him look like he did more work than he actually did or you might have an extremely generous PI who'll put you on the paper for doing not necessarily as much work.

 

[235009]

My understanding is that first author is usually the person for whom the main corpus of the paper was the brainchild of, as well as the "last" author. The ones in between (2nd, 3rd, etc) are usually people who worked on it peripherally.

you don't necessarily have to come up with the idea but most of the time you have to do the bulk of the work. your PI might be the one who came up with the idea but you executed it and wrote the paper ...that makes you first author and your PI would be last author. also you can't lump 2nd author in with the rest of the authors in the middle ...second author usually does a good deal of work as well ...for example if you did the data analysis but didn't have much of a hand in writing the paper you would be second author.

 

[yamaraja808]

you don't necessarily have to come up with the idea but most of the time you have to do the bulk of the work. your PI might be the one who came up with the idea but you executed it and wrote the paper ...that makes you first author and your PI would be last author. also you can't lump 2nd author in with the rest of the authors in the middle ...second author usually does a good deal of work as well ...for example if you did the data analysis but didn't have much of a hand in writing the paper you would be second author.

Yes, to add on to this, the importance of first author is shown through researchers who cite your work. For example, they could put a sentence like "heart flow is slowed down due to this [blank] chemical (OasisFTW et. al., 2011)." Your name will be cited through their papers (depending on the format; ex. APA, etc.) because the first author has the most knowledge of the published study.

Authorship should be determined before the start of the paper to avoid problems between you and the PI. You do not want to be writing the whole paper and doing the majority of the experiments only to have the PI not put you as first author! This is considered unethical conduct.

 

[Hemichordate]

If you write part of the paper and help in creating the original research question, but don't collect any of the data and only do a small amount of the data analysis, is that still good enough for an authorship?

 

[yamaraja808]

If you write part of the paper and help in creating the original research question, but don't collect any of the data and only do a small amount of the data analysis, is that still good enough for an authorship?

There is no definite answer as to what entitles authorship. However, based on what you have written, I would say yes. I don't think it is enough for first author but enough for authorship. You have written a portion of the paper and did some data analysis so you are definitely involved in the paper.

Remember this is an agreement based of your P.I. and other researchers in the lab. So there is no guarantee of authorship. Decide authorship early to avoid unnecessary problems in the future!

 

[shaggy alfresco]

If you write part of the paper and help in creating the original research question, but don't collect any of the data and only do a small amount of the data analysis, is that still good enough for an authorship?

No, not at my lab. But other labs may have different criteria. As others have said, there is no universal set of rules that everyone follows.

 

[ArcGurren]

you don't necessarily have to come up with the idea but most of the time you have to do the bulk of the work. your PI might be the one who came up with the idea but you executed it and wrote the paper ...that makes you first author and your PI would be last author. also you can't lump 2nd author in with the rest of the authors in the middle ...second author usually does a good deal of work as well ...for example if you did the data analysis but didn't have much of a hand in writing the paper you would be second author.

Thanks for the clarification.

Honestly, during medical school, I don't care if I make first author on a ton of publications. If I continue research during my time as a resident, fellow, or attending, then maybe I'll care.

 

[justdoit31]

you don't necessarily have to come up with the idea but most of the time you have to do the bulk of the work. your PI might be the one who came up with the idea but you executed it and wrote the paper ...that makes you first author and your PI would be last author. also you can't lump 2nd author in with the rest of the authors in the middle ...second author usually does a good deal of work as well ...for example if you did the data analysis but didn't have much of a hand in writing the paper you would be second author.

usually this- my PI is a really good writer so after I gathered all the data and gave her it and a rough draft of an abstract she did most of the writing and I just helped edit her revisions of my rough draft even though I am first author. I think some of this was because I am across the country from her and she knows I'm in school full-time and preparing for step.