will a peer-reviewed publication at a non-reputable journal useful for residency?

[PerfectMD]

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Hi all,

Incoming M1 currently. I have an opportunity to publish at a pretty much non-reputable journal but peer-reviewed. Will this be useful for residency or should I not go for it? When it comes time for residency applications, is having peer-reviewed work the only thing that matters, or does the journal also matter? I don't want to put something on my record that could be viewed negatively.

Thank you in advance for your advice.

 

[ACSurgeon]

Hi all,

Incoming M1 currently. I have an opportunity to publish at a pretty much non-reputable journal but peer-reviewed. Will this be useful for residency or should I not go for it? When it comes time for residency applications, is having peer-reviewed work the only thing that matters, or does the journal also matter? I don't want to put something on my record that could be viewed negatively.

Thank you in advance for your advice.

everything matters and is looked at, so the journal, the type of research, the quality etc. nonetheless, a publication should be better than no publication. Short of this being a pay-to-publish journal, I don’t think a publication will be viewed as negative...

 

[Animalcules]

What journals are not pay to publish?

 

[Goro]

What journals are not pay to publish?

What AC means is predatory journals. Your library can tell you what is and what isn't. Generally, if it's not in Pubmed, it's not good.

 

[PerfectMD]

What AC means is predatory journals. Your library can tell you what is and what isn't. Generally, if it's not in Pubmed, it's not good.

Okay, so the journal does have a few articles in pubmed. They were NIH-funded. Mine is not NIH-funded, so may not make it that far. Is this a positive towards the journal or just a possible tactic to get around the system?

 

[Goro]

Okay, so the journal does have a few articles in pubmed. They were NIH-funded. Mine is not NIH-funded, so may not make it that far. Is this a positive towards the journal or just a possible tactic to get around the system?

Your funding source is irrelevant. The journal is thus fine
When you say non-reputable, do you mean a low impact journal? A pub is a pub. You don't need to have Cell or Nature paper for your residency app.

 

[PerfectMD]

Your funding source is irrelevant. The journal is thus fine
When you say non-reputable, do you mean a low impact journal? A pub is a pub. You don't need to have Cell or Nature paper for your residency app.

Thanks for the clarification. I mean open access possibly predatory. On their site they claim an impact of 1.47 (over 5 years) can't find this info elsewhere. So also low impact. The impact aspect I can deal with. Is it okay for me to publish with them is what I was worried about.

 

[Lawpy]

Thanks for the clarification. I mean open access possibly predatory. On their site they claim an impact of 1.47 (over 5 years) can't find this info elsewhere. So also low impact. The impact aspect I can deal with. Is it okay for me to publish with them is what I was worried about.

There are high impact journals with open access features that require authors to pay to publish. So open access doesn't mean predatory. Predatory journals are usually those without an impact factor, are badly ranked/hosted in crappy websites and aren't pubmed indexed.

Your mentor really should know what journals are predatory and should be avoided

 

[sipping_cipro]

What do you mean by a few articles on pub med? If the journal is indexed on pub med it is fine to publish there, regardless of the impact factor. A PLOS one paper is still a paper. Just say the journal name if you want actual advice, no one is going to hunt you down.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Okay, so the journal does have a few articles in pubmed. They were NIH-funded. Mine is not NIH-funded, so may not make it that far. Is this a positive towards the journal or just a possible tactic to get around the system?

I think you may be confusing how NIH-funded papers are required to be deposited in PubMed CENTRAL, which is open-access. Whether or not a paper is findable in PubMed is somewhat different, but if a journal is putting papers in PMC it's probably logged in PubMed.

As others have said, just because a journal is low-impact or you've never heard of it before doesn't make it bad. Listen to your mentor. If they think the journal is good, then publish there. And even if it does wind up that your mentor is getting duped and it is "predatory" any pub on your CV is always helpful.

 

[PerfectMD]

What do you mean by a few articles on pub med? If the journal is indexed on pub med it is fine to publish there, regardless of the impact factor. A PLOS one paper is still a paper. Just say the journal name if you want actual advice, no one is going to hunt you down.

Journal of Novel Physiotherapies.

 

[Animalcules]

What is the journal?

 

[futureapppsy2]

What AC means is predatory journals. Your library can tell you what is and what isn't. Generally, if it's not in Pubmed, it's not good.

If you are doing traditional medical research, maybe. If you are doing something more inter- or trans-disciplinary (say, CBPR, social determinants of health, psychosocial issues in a particular patient population, etc), there are plenty of reputable journals that may not be indexed in Pubmed (and honestly, there are plenty of questionable ones in Pubmed).

 

[Thesimplelifeofamyloid]

Journal of Novel Physiotherapies.

This journal looks kinda sus to me. They only have a 11 articles that are actually on pub med, and most of them were from 2013. The only thing I see recent are these commentaries. I can barely find those anywhere when google searching them. Find a different journal. Just get it in pub-med and you'll clear most bars. Most people won't delve into it any further after that.

 

[sella.turcica]

What's the name of the journal?

 

[Lawpy]

What is the journal?

What's the name of the journal?

Journal of Novel Physiotherapies.

That looks like a crap journal sorry

 

[PerfectMD]

This journal looks kinda sus to me. They only have a 11 articles that are actually on pub med, and most of them were from 2013. The only thing I see recent are these commentaries. I can barely find those anywhere when google searching them. Find a different journal. Just get it in pub-med and you'll clear most bars. Most people won't delve into it any further after that.

If all other options were to become exhausted, can this journal be a suitable last resort?

 

[PerfectMD]

That looks like a crap journal sorry

ah, fair.

 

[PerfectMD]

If all other options were to become exhausted, can this journal be a suitable last resort?

Do the negative far outweigh any positives of publishing here, is what I'm asking.

 

[Lawpy]

Do the negative far outweigh any positives of publishing here, is what I'm asking.

Yes because you can do better than publishing in a journal that relies mainly on opinions and commentaries

 

[Thesimplelifeofamyloid]

If all other options were to become exhausted, can this journal be a suitable last resort?

I suppose it could. Are you working with an attending on this? You might be able to get it in a PubMed indexed specialty indexed journal, or something like BMJ spinoffs (if a case report) or Cureus. All are PubMed indexed

 

[hohxil_fr]

The journal is run by the OMICS Publishing Group. It's predatory according to Wiki.
I want to mention that publishing on these kinds of journal might have a long-term, negative impact on you profile if you want to be involved in academic medicine in the future. I personally prefer protecting my our reputation and avoiding these journals.
It depends on your goal. I don't know about physicians because I'm not. But for scientists, they can notice these journals on your CV, and it's not a very good look.

 

[Lawpy]

The journal is run by the OMICS Publishing Group. It's predatory according to Wiki.
I want to mention that publishing on these kinds of journal might have a long-term, negative impact on you profile if you want to be involved in academic medicine in the future. I personally prefer protecting my our reputation and avoiding these journals.
It depends on your goal. I don't know about physicians because I'm not. But for scientists, they can notice these journals on your CV, and it's not a very good look.

I'm hoping PDs aren't dumb enough to fall for predatory journals but i'm not optimistic

Just by looking at the website, i can tell it's crap and i'm a dumb research guy in the grand scheme of things.

 

[hohxil_fr]

If the medical student doesn't have floods of papers, I assume that PDs might catch it if there are only, say, three publications on the CV. But I'm also not sure about PDs' taste on this predatory issue.

 

[PerfectMD]

If the medical student doesn't have floods of papers, I assume that PDs might catch it if there are only, say, three publications on the CV. But I'm also not sure about PDs' taste on this predatory issue.

Two MD clinical researchers recommended this journal...

 

[Animalcules]

I would never ever publish there. I’d rather post on Reddit. This is garbage and it takes 10 second for me to google and place you app on the “naive and gullible” pile of applications.

 

[Animalcules]

Two MD clinical researchers recommended this journal...

Get better advice.

 

[Lawpy]

Two MD clinical researchers recommended this journal...

And that's the biggest tragedy in all this. Show them this:

OMICS Publishing Group - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Redpancreas]

Just publish it. It's still a publication. It may not be highly regarded but it's something. If we start putting journals up on the proverbial SDN bulletin board and asking which ones are legit, I bet half our publications will be worthless. I don't think PDs are looking that hard into this.

 

[Thesimplelifeofamyloid]

Just publish it. It's still a publication. It not be highly regarded but it's something. If we start playing "which journals are legit" on SDN, I bet half our publications will be worthless. I don't think PDs are looking that hard into this.

I agree with this for the most part, if all else fails. But I still think OP can do a little bit better

 

[Redpancreas]

I agree with this for the most part, if all else fails. But I still think OP can do a little bit better

Fair.

 

[Lawpy]

Just publish it. It's still a publication. It may not be highly regarded but it's something. If we start putting journals up on the proverbial SDN bulletin board and asking which ones are legit, I bet half our publications will be worthless. I don't think PDs are looking that hard into this.

Encouraging OP to publish in predatory journals is a bad idea. Usually mentors know which ones are legit but OP got stuck with some crappy advisers and got bad advice

 

[Redpancreas]

Encouraging OP to publish in predatory journals is a bad idea. Usually mentors know which ones are legit but OP got stuck with some crappy advisers and got bad advice

Do you think someone looking at the publication will know the difference at this point? I think OP should strive to do better, but worst comes to worst just publish.

Edit: And make sure you document it on Twitter/Facebook OP! Got to capitalize on that MedTwitter clout.

 

[Lawpy]

Do you think someone looking at the publication will know the difference at this point? I think OP should strive to do better, but worst comes to worst just publish.

Edit: And make sure you document it on Twitter/Facebook OP! Got to capitalize on that MedTwitter clout.

I sure hope they do! We're talking academic attendings reading residency applications not some average joe. If academic attendings don't know what's a good journal vs predatory, we have a serious problem here

 

[Redpancreas]

I sure hope they do! We're talking academic attendings reading residency applications not some average joe. If academic attendings don't know what's a good journal vs predatory, we have a serious problem here

I don't disagree with a word of that.

 

[Animalcules]

Number of people that are potentially impressed by the publication: 0%
Number of people that may be put off by seeing this publication: 60%

 

[Thesimplelifeofamyloid]

Number of people that are potentially impressed by the publication: 0%
Number of people that may be put off by seeing this publication: 60%

What are people's thoughts on this being more of a numbers game then anything? Definitely not encouraging OP to publish in this journal, but nowadays, I'm willing to bet they probably just look at the number of presentations, abstracts and pubs and assign a number based off that ultimately gets calculated toward your pre-interview score or whatever. If I learned anything from med school admission, the quality of what you do is less important. Still know people that started non-profit organizations, got accepted, and those nonprofits listed on their resume magically disappeared.

 

[Lawpy]

What are people's thoughts on this being more of a numbers game then anything? Definitely not encouraging OP to publish in this journal, but nowadays, I'm willing to bet they probably just look at the number of presentations, abstracts and pubs and assign a number based off that ultimately gets calculated toward your pre-interview score or whatever. If I learned anything from med school admission, the quality of what you do is less important. Still know people that started non-profit organizations, got accepted, and those nonprofits listed on their resume magically disappeared.

PDs seriously can't be this idiotic and antiscience that they can't tell predatory pubs from legit papers

 

[Lawpy]

@SurfingDoctor @operaman @NotAProgDirector help me understand here. Can you tell crappy predatory papers apart from legit papers? Even if its unusually SDN-level 100s of papers, you'll get the sense from journal name which is legit and which is predatory right?

 

[operaman]

@SurfingDoctor @operaman @NotAProgDirector help me understand here. Can you tell crappy predatory papers apart from legit papers? Even if its unusually SDN-level 100s of papers, you'll get the sense from journal name which is legit and which is predatory right?

I know which journals in my own field and related fields are fairly legit, so anything outside that group tends to get lumped in the same bucket. There are so many crap predatory journals that it’s impossible to know them all though. It probably looks better to publish something somewhere than not at all, but nobody is really fooling anyone.

 

[Lawpy]

I know which journals in my own field and related fields are fairly legit, so anything outside that group tends to get lumped in the same bucket. There are so many crap predatory journals that it’s impossible to know them all though. It probably looks better to publish something somewhere than not at all, but nobody is really fooling anyone.

It's basically everything to do with familiarity and a quick online check for any unfamiliar names. A lot of predatory journals have crazy names that it becomes pretty readily apparent.

I mean then again, the applicants with good research apps aren't going to be publishing in crap journals anyways especially if they're applying for a competitive specialty or surgical sub.

And i don't know what self respecting attending will be ok having their names linked to a predatory journal.

 

[futureapppsy2]

@SurfingDoctor @operaman @NotAProgDirector help me understand here. Can you tell crappy predatory papers apart from legit papers? Even if its unusually SDN-level 100s of papers, you'll get the sense from journal name which is legit and which is predatory right?

Speaking as a highly-published academic, people generally have a good sense of the journals in their own field/subfield and associated research areas but typically don't really know the journals outside of that, minus the big ones like JAMA, NEJM. There's also the issue of predatory journals intentionally choosing names that are very close to those of well-established, reputable journals. It's basically a crapshoot on whether or not the person reviewing the application will have the time or interest to look up a journal that they don't know, although with the high volume of applications, it would lean to "no."

 

[Dr G Oogle]

Hi all,

Incoming M1 currently. I have an opportunity to publish at a pretty much non-reputable journal but peer-reviewed. Will this be useful for residency or should I not go for it? When it comes time for residency applications, is having peer-reviewed work the only thing that matters, or does the journal also matter? I don't want to put something on my record that could be viewed negatively.

Thank you in advance for your advice.

anyone looking at your cv who knows about research and subject matter will know it’s a 💩 journal and thus not a high quality paper; anyone who doesn’t do research will not know the difference and thus it won’t matter. I.e. if you want a highly competitive residency it’s not gonna help, if you don’t where/what you publish is irrelevant. So basically probably not going to help you, but it’s not gonna hurt and any reasonable person will know it’s not a college kid selecting the journal for publication, but same people will now it probably wasn’t even the tenth choice for a journal to publish in.

for the record there are some open access journals that will have NIH funded studies indexed on pubmed but non NIH funded ones won’t be indexed there. This has more to do with the NIH then the journal and does not eliminate the fact that is a 💩 journal. NIH funded could be a secondary analysis of study by people completely unrelated to the original study, much of the data collected during NIH studies are public domain after a while so anyone can access them.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Bottom line, just get it published somewhere. If your PI is telling you to go for a predatory journal, there's not a ton you can do about it. But given the Wikipedia article linked above, I might actually suggest that you make sure that your PI actually did intend this predatory journal and not a different but similarly-named legitimate one.

 

[Lawpy]

Speaking as a highly-published academic, people generally have a good sense of the journals in their own field/subfield and associated research areas but typically don't really know the journals outside of that, minus the big ones like JAMA, NEJM. There's also the issue of predatory journals intentionally choosing names that are very close to those of well-established, reputable journals. It's basically a crapshoot on whether or not the person reviewing the application will have the time or interest to look up a journal that they don't know, although with the high volume of applications, it would lean to "no."

That... is unfortunate but i'm hoping non-specialty specific research is viewed as neutral at best in these cases

Bottom line, just get it published somewhere. If your PI is telling you to go for a predatory journal, there's not a ton you can do about it. But given the Wikipedia article linked above, I might actually suggest that you make sure that your PI actually did intend this predatory journal and not a different but similarly-named legitimate one.

It's just mind boggling that any PI is willing to publish in a predatory journal. It doesn't make sense as it damages their credibility and reputation and makes it difficult to impossible to get grant funding. PI's mistaking the journal for a credible, non-predatory journal could be possible... but a bit disappointing since they're the ones who are supposed to know which journal is credible vs predatory

Idk. It's strange to me

 

[ACSurgeon]

@SurfingDoctor @operaman @NotAProgDirector help me understand here. Can you tell crappy predatory papers apart from legit papers? Even if its unusually SDN-level 100s of papers, you'll get the sense from journal name which is legit and which is predatory right?

When I applied for residency I had several research projects and abstracts/posters but no published articles. I still got Interviews at solid academic surgery programs and we discussed my ongoing research and possible future research plans. So, some research is better than no research and my guess is some publication is better than none. I highly doubt it would actually hurt the OP in the future, especially that it’s being done pre-med.

 

[Lawpy]

When I applied for residency I had several research projects and abstracts/posters but no published articles. I still got Interviews at solid academic surgery programs and we discussed my ongoing research and possible future research plans. So, some research is better than no research and my guess is some publication is better than none. I highly doubt it would actually hurt the OP in the future, especially that it’s being done pre-med.

Abstracts/posters, even school posters, are legit research though. Academic surgery programs are probably still interested mainly in surgery research correct? Because a predatory surgery journal will probably be caught by PDs and probably view it as a red flag vs predatory non surgery pubs

Idk. I know i'm making a big deal out of this and it is a big deal because we're feeding the predatory journal business model and degrading science by encouraging any pubs anywhere just to show some research and check the research box to help match. PDs should be discerning or find something outside of research to weigh heavily

 

[GoSpursGo]

It's just mind boggling that any PI is willing to publish in a predatory journal. It doesn't make sense as it damages their credibility and reputation and makes it difficult to impossible to get grant funding.

Really? You know this for a fact? 🙂

Here are two points to consider on the other side of the coin. Nobody is a PI without having legitimate publications in high-impact journals. If once in a while you publish in a crap journal, nobody is going to care or notice because they're going to focus on the shiny publications in good journals. You're going to do fine getting grants based on those. Hell if it's really a problem, they can just leave it off their CV.

Also, being a PI means that you have to consider the careers of the people working under you, and when you are working with a med student/resident, sometimes they just need to get *something* published for their next application. Maybe the PI doesn't want to spend 9 months shopping the paper around a bunch of impact factor 1.5-2 journals. Maybe they just want to get the paper published before the OP leaves. Maybe the PI knows in their heart of hearts that the project isn't really publishable, but doesn't want the trainee to come up empty handed.

So sure, in a perfect lollypop world, every paper is done with perfect design from the onset, includes all of the appropriate controls and passes a robust peer-review process. But bottom line, sometimes you just need to get even the back-back-backburner projects published somewhere and be done with it. You're not going to make a career out of publishing in predatory journals, but doing it occasionally to help a trainee get a paper out on a reasonable timeline can be reasonable. If the trainee later decides they want to pursue an academic career, they have ample time to publish in legit journals later, but RIGHT NOW they may just need something for their ERAS application.

 

[DOVinciRobot]

@SurfingDoctor @operaman @NotAProgDirector help me understand here. Can you tell crappy predatory papers apart from legit papers? Even if its unusually SDN-level 100s of papers, you'll get the sense from journal name which is legit and which is predatory right?

If the name sounds like the dozens of predatory journals that email me daily asking for submissions I assume it's crap (sorry OP but this one fits the bill). Honestly I'd rather be published in the osteopathic journal than a predatory one.

I do agree PDs largely will be too lazy to look it up though.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

There's no way I can hunt down all the journals people publish in. However, the more bizarre the journal name or the paper title, the more likely I am to look. And, the person that interviews you is likely to look -- which ultimately gets reported back.

It's unlikely to hurt. Will it really make any difference? probably not.