Authors

Abstract

Having ideas or opinions in medicine is commonplace. Discussing them publicly requires some basis and responsibility. Publishing them requires persistence, technical ability, dedication, knowledge and discipline. Authors need to bring together all the characteristics described above and also need to have a high degree of comprehension, for them to accept the possible corrections made by editors and the editing rules of journals. This exercise in medical active citizenship, which is what writing and publishing scientific studies comprises, has its partial recompense in the form of dissemination of authors’ work and the points that they gain within their academic careers. Publication through profession channels is the most correct and appropriate means of dissemination and it has a return measured in respect, which is a highly valued quality within the field of medicine. Scoring within the academic environment is done through evaluations by the federal bodies for scientific production monitoring, which is a matter that we have already discussed more than once in editorials like this. Within the academic environment, the respect for authors is so great that this quality is the main means of exchange in evaluating any public competition in university life. Another published paper in a good-quality journal is worth more than organizing a book, for example. But why is there this obvious manifestation of respect and appreciation for the figure of the author? Because in some situations this important quality that physicians have is trivialized through excessive numbers of authors for scientific studies. At the RBO we do not have a clear limit for the number of authors per study, and in most cases, we receive studies with up to four or five authors. We suppose that the first author was the principal investigator, the second was the most active assistant, the last was the mentor and the third and fourth were assistants in subsidiary areas of the topic or students undergoing a scientific initiation process. For example, in a study on bone tumors, the first authors would be the one who organized the cases, surveyed all the medical files, set up the tables, discussed the statistical analysis and wrote the text, with the aid of the second author and under guidance from the last author, while the third or the third and fourth authors, if present, would be the radiologist and/or the anatomopathologist. Other collaborators who may have participated in the study by supplying a bibliographic reference, indicating one case or another for the sample or providing some scientific documentation can be taken into consideration through acknowledgements at the end of the paper, after the conclusions. They are not authors because they did not participate in structuring the work, and therefore they cannot be listed as such. The authors of a study may not have participated in carrying out any of the actions that are analyzed for compiling the text. Being an author of a paper is an intellectual act and not a physical act. Excellent papers are published from systematic reviews, in which there has not been any involvement of the authors in the texts that have been considered in the review. At the RBO, when we receive a study with more than five authors, we have difficulty in understanding this, especially when the study is a case report or an analysis on a specific technique. Putting six or seven authors into a study that is not a consensus or a multicenter open clinical investigation suggests a certain degree of protectionism or even favoritism, which should not occur in this activity. Some journals cite the first six authors and place the remaining authors under the title “et al, which means “and others. Citations in electronic search systems or in other studies will always be based on the first author. In fact, there is no hierarchy of values according to the order of citation and, in some situations, a name in any position on the list of authors confers trustworthiness and respect on the text. Nonetheless, there is a consensus that the authors cited need to have had a direct relationship with the study. The RBO will maintain its attitude of respect for all the authors listed, but suggests in this editorial that this attitude will remain very alert with regard to avoiding devaluation and trivialization of this important figure within continuing medical education and scientific publishing: the author.