Letter to the Editor
Makaleler > Kısa Makale · 2012
Yazarlar: Dursun Emre KUMRAL
European Neurology, Uluslararası, Wos, 2012, cilt 67, ss 238-238
DOI: 10.1159/000335283
Özet
Dear Sir,Dr. Kocaman worked for a long period of time alongside me in our Neurological and Stroke Intensive Care Unit. She retired 8 months ago from our university and is now working in a private hospital in Istanbul. It is, of course, entirely possible that she has encountered some of my patients in passing, but she has never been responsible for prescribing medications or the treatment or therapy these patients received.Dr. Kocaman has made a number of somewhat unrealistic claims and allegations in respect of our article and the treatment accorded to the patients, but it is also transparently obvious that she mistakenly perceives her scientific standing to be in jeopardy. When someone wishes to be acknowledged as a contributor to a scientific paper, it is normally necessary to observe a few well-established scientific and ethical conventions. These include, in the first place, some kind of participation in the process of defining its conceptual focus and the actual design of a study. Providing an analysis or an interpretation of salient data also qualifies, as does the drafting or revision of the contents of a manuscript. The activities that warrant acknowledgment do not, however, include the process of acquiring data whenever methods designed by others are employed, and contributions such as the collection of data, obtaining funding, supervising personnel, or manuscript editing assistance are also not normally mentioned [1]. I would like to ask Dr. Kocaman where she has contributed to the study. Was it to the design of the study? To the follow-up and treatment of the patients? Was it to the interpretation or was it to the drafting or revising of the manuscript? I look forward to her response.In a scientific study each author should have participated sufficiently to take public responsibility for a specific portion of the content, while one or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article. Otherwise, a person who wishes to be acknowledged as a contributor without having made an intellectual contribution can at most be regarded as a ghostwriter. This term is used to refer to an undisclosed person (paid or unpaid) who has made an intellectual contribution insofar as they have written the submitted manuscript [2]. Dr. Kocaman, by writing her letter, seems to be declaring that she wishes to be, and insists upon being, viewed as a ghostwriter of a scientific paper that has been published in a prestigious journal even though she has not met the journal’s scientific criteria. She knows neither the patients’ names, nor their treatment and the interventions that were necessary. She did not follow any patients and does not know the radiological results of these patients.Clinical studies require the involvement, cooperation, and dedication of many individuals. Roles and responsibilities range from conceiving the study and designing the protocol to collecting and analyzing the data, and the numerous essential steps in between. Authors are required to identify their contribution to the work described in a manuscript. Individuals who do not fulfill authorship criteria should not be identified as authors solely by virtue of their having been a member of the study group, or simply because they performed some activities, like those dealing with the funding, patient enrollment, manuscript preparation, or the supervision of study personnel.Unfortunately, we were not able to include Dr. Kocaman’s name as a contributor, because she was not involved with the study at any stage. Sadly, in my country if a Doctor such as Dr. Kocaman catches a glimpse of a patient from afar, they want to be acknowledged as a contributor to a manuscript even when it is entirely unmerited and notwithstanding the fact that established and prestigious journals insist upon the fulfillment of certain criteria.Upon learning about the unwarranted and misguided claims of Dr. Kocaman, I wrote to the Ethical Committee of Ege University Medical Faculty and called upon them to investigate her claims. I provided all documents relating to our manuscript (No. 22913221/2011).I would like to express my gratitude for sending me these unfair and disconcerting claims. As a person involved with the study, I can only understand Dr. Kocaman’s accusation as an expression of the unfulfilled ambition of a ghostwriter. We could not put her name in our manuscript for the reasons outlined above and reject her claims which are entirely inconsistent and incoherent.