To follow-up the literary references: the title is from a play by Ludvig Holberg. This was also the title winning the Holberg high-school competition some years ago, a project dealing with fraud.
At the last meeting in the committee of extended research management, research fraud was pointed at as one focus area. We should strive to be attentive to this ethical aspect when planning, conducting and presenting our research.
Forging results we all acknowledge as fraud, but there are several more subtle areas where our ethical consciousness might be stretched to benefit ourselves. What about the tendency of selective citation of references; those supporting our own hypothesis are preferred to those disagreeing. Selective publishing is another; it is somehow more convenient to publish positive (meaning: statistical significant) results than those without differences. And what if the interesting (and significant) results from the former study of the newest promising biomarker could not be validated in the following study? We do however have a moral responsibility to publicly present our conducted research, both for the sake of those providing research funding and participating patients contributing with biologic samples/clinical data, as well as to not introduce new treatment algorithms prematurely. “The Invisible” (meaning unpublished) studies may in effect be one form of fraud.
And do we follow the Vancouver treaty? Holding the title as research group leader or head of clinical department, is that equivalent to actually plan, conduct, analyse and write every paper from the group/department? Or should some of these stated as authors in reality be the Invisible?
I would like to remind you all of the OSCE exam 8th of November; those not already having stated who will contribute: please do so to Ketil Grong (he is in need of more qualified helpers).
The Day of the Institute (K2) will be hosted the 29th of November. We do hope our new Head of Institute will be formally appointed at that time, and will actively contribute by presenting the upcoming visions for our Department of Clinical Science.
Jone
