Marta Pulido, a doctor of medicine and surgeon, has joined our academy with an acceptance speech entitled Reflexiones sobre la autoría de las publicaciones científicas (“Reflections on the authorship of scientific publications”)
Dr Marta Pulido
Marta Pulido, a doctor of medicine and surgeon, was formally accepted as a corresponding member of the Royal European Academy of Doctors – Barcelona 1914 (RAED) at a ceremony held on Wednesday 20 June in the Atlantes Room of the Royal Circle Artistic of Barcelona. The member elect delivered her acceptance speech entitled Reflexiones sobre la autoría de las publicaciones científicas (“Reflections on the authorship of scientific publications”). Pedro Clarós, a full member of the RAED and the vice-president of its governing board, responded on behalf of the academy.
“The transformation of a scientific study into a text suitable for publication in a biomedical journal is indeed a complex process, and one highly likely to overwhelm and discourage newcomers
Dr Pulido’s work is concerned with the complex issue of authorship in scientific publications, particularly those affected by the now-obligatory procedure of peer review taken from the English-speaking world. “The transformation of a scientific study into a text suitable for publication in a biomedical journal is indeed a complex process, and one highly likely to overwhelm and discourage newcomers. The hurdles that have to be jumped during the drafting of the article can be just as daunting as those that arose during the original study”, says the researcher.
The new academician dates today’s standardised revision of scientific work to just after the Second World War, when the system of peer review became generalised, before gradually consolidating and then acquiring its current strong base. Another decisive moment in this process of standardisation, which the author likewise refers to, is the publication in 1985 of the first book dedicated to peer review as a concept.
The problem, she continues, is the conduct of many “reviewers” when it comes to attaching their signatures to scientific studies with which they have absolutely no connection, particularly when they consist of work by junior researchers. Hard-working young postgraduates may be treated unethically, by not being given legitimate credit for, or recognition of, their efforts. This predatory desire to accumulate by-lines can lead to a slippery slope of misconduct, where authorship is debased by unjustified and devalued signatures”, she points out.
Dr Pulido concluded with a satirical ode on this problem, originally published in The Lancet:
“When the first eraser was not finished yet
Aspiring authors were already aligned
They maneuvered to take positions
Who would be the first, second and third
And who “and cols.” In subsequent citations
If the food of the academics is to publish
Not to appear among the first authors is to agonize…
But the young people who worked had not slept
They were thanked or fell into oblivion
When the article was being reviewed
Six co-authors did not even know about it…”
