Professionalism/Medical Ghostwriting

Medical ghostwriting is a covert practice among the medical community by which the authors who significantly contribute to medical literature are not given credit, and the authors listed have not substantially contributed to the paper.

Comparisons to plagiarism

Ghostwriting is technically plagiarism but hasn’t been treated like it. Plagiarism is defined as using the ideas or words of another and claiming it as your own. If the source is not credited, it is plagiarism. If a lab chief insists on putting his name on anything that comes out of his lab or if a well-known scientist is asked to put his or her name on a paper to boost credibility, action must be taken. These authors are plagiarizing other’s work. Students get kicked out of school for plagiarism, shouldn’t these scientists be kicked out of their profession for the same reasons? There have been claims that ghostwriting undermines the integrity of the entire academic system. Even though editors of the journals are aware that articles are ghostwritten they still take no action. Ghostwriting is not black and white. Some ghostwriters participate in the entire process, researching, writing and editing the paper. Others will only write, and not participate in the research process, and some will only edit the paper. We have to define how much the “author” participated in the process. Some authors are heavily involved while some merely put their name on the document. Also, some ghostwriters end up being acknowledged by the “authors” while others remain anonymous. It comes down to interpretation where if proper and legal consent was given to leave the ghostwriters name off the manuscript is plagiarism still considered?

Generalized Lesson About Professionalism

"Theory of Beneficial Skepticism"