Residents and authorship: rights, obligations, and avoiding the pitfalls.

The ICMJE also stresses that most journals now request and publish information about the contributions of each individual that had a role in the work being submitted. Finally, ICMJE encourages journals and their editorial boards to develop and implement a contributorship policy. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Common Program Requirements specify that faculty should encourage and support residents in scholarly activities. Underlying this expectation is the observation that residents, for the most part, are advanced beginners in this area and require guidance in their development as scholars. The goal is that faculty will mentor residents in the pursuit of scholarship that will culminate in publication in peer-reviewed journals. This is one expectation of the scholarship of discovery, as defined in the Boyer and Glassick conceptualizations. Although not explicitly articulated, implied in the expectations for faculty mentorship of residents’ scholarly activity is the concurrent effort to teach learners the standards of professionalism as they relate to the process of discovery, peer-review, and dissemination. Among the areas of the mentor-mentee relationship that are most difficult to navigate is the act of formally establishing authorship: recognition of the intellectual contributions to a work submitted for publication. This requires a careful balance, across an authority gradient, as faculty mentors and learners explore the concept of contribution, and the rights and obligations of being added to the author byline. The need for a correction in the list of authors for a previously published article resulted from the omission of the names of 2 resident authors who had made significant contributions to an earlier version of this article. These residents, students at the time the initial manuscript had been written, had left the institution where they had collaborated with the faculty author to pursue graduate medical education in other locations. The manuscript was ultimately completed with the assistance of another resident. However, large sections of text from the original contribution remained. On seeing this, the 2 earlier contributors were caught off guard by the publication of an article they believed they had contributed to in a manner that met the criteria of authorship. The residents raised this issue with the Journal, in pursuit of the scholarly credit they felt was due them. Investigation by the Journal revealed that that the senior author had tried to contact the 2 resident authors on multiple occasions, but when that proved unsuccessful, had revised and submitted the article with another coauthor. The senior author indicated this was due to discomfort at not being able to have the 2 contributors sign off on the content of the manuscript that was submitted, which included new data. He volunteered that the residents’ contribution should be acknowledged by coauthorship. After careful review of the specifics in this case, the editors decided to include the original residents as coauthors. In addition, the editors thought it would be beneficial to discuss the underlying expectations for authorship and contributorship because this is highly relevant to the Journal’s audience and its aim to promote resident and faculty scholarship and dissemination. A critical question around authorship concerns the quantity and quality of contribution that will qualify an individual to be listed as an author, as contrasted with mention in the ‘‘Acknowledgments.’’ To distinguish authorship from other contributions, ICMJE recommends that authorship credit should be based on 3 criteria. Ideally, each author will meet each criterion: