Publication misrepresentation among pediatric anesthesiology fellowship applicants: A retrospective single-center cohort study

Abstract

Background: Many medical specialties have found publication misrepresentation in residency and fellowship applications, but pediatric anesthesia fellowship application data is lacking.

Aims: We sought to determine the prevalence of publication misrepresentation among pediatric anesthesia fellowship applications.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, fellowship applications to Stanford University's pediatric anesthesiology fellowship program from 2009 to 2019 were reviewed. Only peer-reviewed journal articles listed as accepted or published were included. Nine additional variables were collected: applicant age, gender, citizenship status, American vs. international medical school, public vs. private medical school, allopathic doctor versus osteopathic doctor, number of years between college and medical school, additional degrees, and application year. The primary outcome was the rate of publication misrepresentation, defined as peer-reviewed journal citations listed on the application that could not be verified or on which the applicant was not listed as an author. Secondary outcomes were the associations between publication misrepresentation and the additional collected variables.

Results: 1280 peer-reviewed journal publications from 877 applicants were reviewed. 3.4% of all citations listed as peer-reviewed journal articles were misrepresented and 9.0% of all applicants with at least 1 publication had ≥1 misrepresented publications. 30.2% of publications labelled "misrepresented" were located in our search of databases but did not have the applicant as an author, and 69.8% could not be located using the search databases. Only one of the 9 collected variables (public vs private medical school) was significantly associated with publication misrepresentation.

Conclusions: In this single-center retrospective study, publication misrepresentation was found to occur in one out of 11 pediatric anesthesia fellowship applications with at least one publication. Since residency and fellowship applicant publications may be heavily weighted during the application process, programs may want to include additional inquiries into the accuracy of applicant publications.

Keywords: anesthesiology; fellowship applications; pediatric anesthesia; publication misrepresentation.