Academic medicine: Allegations are not true

Editor - We are writing in response to a letter by Priya Krishnan that we have just been made aware of.¹ This letter relates to a laboratory project by Ms Krishnan, carried out under our supervision as part of her studies towards an intercalated BSc degree. In her letter, Ms Krishnan alleges that a paper published by one of us last year was “essentially a copy of my experiment with similar results” and that “I had not been acknowledged for the three months that I had spent in the lab.”² Ms Krishnan concludes by alleging that she did the “donkey work” and that we were not “professional enough” to acknowledge her work. These allegations have no basis in the truth.

None of the results presented in the relevant paper were from Ms Krishnans work. The paper reports only data from measurements of intracellular pH, but no such measurements were carried out by Ms Krishnan as part of her project. Furthermore, the published data were obtained well before Ms Krishnan started her project; they formed the rationale behind it, as Ms Krishnan acknowledged in her project report. The only place in the paper where Ms Krishnans work is mentioned is in the discussion, where her contribution is appropriately acknowledged. Here, it is stated: “Indeed there is preliminary evidence that [the drug] inhibits the positive effects of phenylephrine on (1) cell shortening under normal conditions, and (2) the recovery of cell shortening following intracellular acidosis (P Krishnan and J C Kentish, Kings College London, personal communication).” This is the accepted format for citation of unpublished data.

BSc project supervisors devote a considerable amount of time and energy to ensure that their students projects are interesting and successful and, like us, often allow the students to use state of the art research equipment. The main aim is to give the students experience of research work and of critical analysis. It is unrealistic to expect that, in the limited time available, BSc students without prior laboratory experience can commonly obtain sufficient novel data from their projects for publication in peer reviewed literature. Nevertheless, we strongly support the notion that a student who has contributed, in however small a way, to work that is submitted for publication should be duly acknowledged.

As scientists, we have a duty to ensure that we are sure of the relevant facts before we submit any article for publication. We would expect this principle to be adopted also by contributors to the studentBMJ.

1. Krishnan P. Medical students do the donkey work. studentBMJ 2002;10:125 (April)
2. Avkiran M, Yokoyama H. Adenosine A(1) receptor stimulation inhibits alpha(1)-adrenergic activation of the cardiac sarcolemmal Na(+)/H(+) exchanger. Br J Pharmacol 2000;131:659-62.