Publication website no longer working (sketchy journal?), what do I put on ERAS?

[music2med]

Some backstory: A few years ago, my PI gave a list of journals that had reached out to him to submit papers to, so we dutifully went down the list and submitted to a bunch of journals, some of which we had not heard of before. We got accepted to a journal that we found out later was predatory, but it was too late to recall/redact or otherwise prevent from publishing there. At the time, the consensus was that we could still list it for a publication on ERAS, but now the URL for the journal indicates that the server is down. Unfortunately, this is my only publication as of now, I have projects in process but no presentations or anything. Should I refrain from mentioning this project on ERAS and leave myself with no publications at all? For reference, I am applying gen surg and this article was in gyn surg, my current unpublished projects are in gen surg.

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[pierty]

In general, submitting manuscripts to journals that cold-email is a very bad idea and your PI should've had better judgement - nearly all are predatory (general exceptions are society journals reaching out after you attend a conference).

Is it indexed in pubmed? I would be hesitant to include it regardless, but if it is part of the online library and full text is available, you can list it.

 

[music2med]

In general, submitting manuscripts to journals that cold-email is a very bad idea and your PI should've had better judgement - nearly all are predatory (general exceptions are society journals reaching out after you attend a conference).

Is it indexed in pubmed? I would be hesitant to include it regardless, but if it is part of the online library and full text is available, you can list it.

It is not indexed in PubMed, and there is no way that I can find to access the article online now that the URL is down, so I am leaning more towards not including it at this point. Unfortunately it's on my CV that I sent to my letter writers already, my plan is to take it off and send them my edited CV with updated research experiences.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Don’t list it

 

[GoSpursGo]

It's tough because this is your only pub--if it was one of several, I might say just list it since they might not look up this particular manuscript or might shrug it off if they're able to find your others. But with this being your only pub, the odds of it getting looked up is much higher, and it would not be a great look if it can’t be found.

Still list the project and say you have a manuscript that’s drafted. After a certain period of time, if it looks like the journal has gone caput, you could see if you might be able to resubmit to a more reputable journal.

 

[Lawpy]

A few years ago, my PI gave a list of journals that had reached out to him to submit papers to, so we dutifully went down the list and submitted to a bunch of journals, some of which we had not heard of before.

It’s amazing to see PIs easily falling for scams like this but then i remember what @SurfingDoctor and @ChordaEpiphany have said about the sad state of “research” done by clinicians so i guess i can’t be too surprised.

I would not list it tbh. Publishing in journals that can be found in PubMed is important, but you can always talk about your experience

I would try to see if you can republish it elsewhere in a PubMed indexed journal

 

[pazzer2]

Pubmed is not the only indexing service. Also check to see if the journal is indexed elsewhere: Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, etc. If you have a DOI number then I would list it on ERAS.

 

[mistafab]

Pubmed is not the only indexing service. Also check to see if the journal is indexed elsewhere: Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, etc. If you have a DOI number then I would list it on ERAS.

Agree with pazzer2. This is your only pub, and you did the work. Just list it if you have a DOI and discuss it if it comes up on the trail. Would be an interesting subject for interviews! lol - we've all been approached by these journals so it's not unheard of to get scammed.

 

[GoSpursGo]

I agree that not all journals are PubMed indexed, but my impression is that the paper literally can't be found anywhere online because the entire journal is down. That would make the DOI link to a broken website, which would look super sketch. I do not think an unreasonable conclusion to being unable to find the article is that you're fabricating your publication, and at best it becomes obvious that you published in a predatory journal.

 

[music2med]

Agree with pazzer2. This is your only pub, and you did the work. Just list it if you have a DOI and discuss it if it comes up on the trail. Would be an interesting subject for interviews! lol - we've all been approached by these journals so it's not unheard of to get scammed.

Appreciate what you and @pazzer2 advised, it does have a DOI and was indexed on SciLit apparently. The URL appears to be working again now as well so I'm not sure what to do. As some people have said it's a bad look to publish in a predatory journal but I had talked to an APD at my program and they also said I could talk about it as an interesting story to say what I learned. @GoSpursGo I think it won't look like I fabricated the paper now that the DOI link works but I just don't want to get filtered out pre-interview for publishing in a sketch journal, as some articles on the topic said predatory journal papers are viewed as inaccuracies and possible falsification in the ERAS pub count.

 

[pazzer2]

Having a publication of any kind, at this stage is noteworthy. Although it is from a predatory journal, I don't think that will result in you being screened out.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Appreciate what you and @pazzer2 advised, it does have a DOI and was indexed on SciLit apparently. The URL appears to be working again now as well so I'm not sure what to do. As some people have said it's a bad look to publish in a predatory journal but I had talked to an APD at my program and they also said I could talk about it as an interesting story to say what I learned. @GoSpursGo I think it won't look like I fabricated the paper now that the DOI link works but I just don't want to get filtered out pre-interview for publishing in a sketch journal, as some articles on the topic said predatory journal papers are viewed as inaccuracies and possible falsification in the ERAS pub count.

As long as the paper is findable, you should absolutely list it. The predatory nature of the journal reflects more poorly on your PI, but any put you have is a plus.