title: Minimal prevalence of authorship misrepresentation among internal medicine residency applicants: do previous estimates of "misrepresentation" represent insufficient case finding?.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  High rates of authorship misrepresentation have been documented among medical trainees.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To assess misrepresentation among internal medicine residency applicants while comparing searches used by previous authors (searches 1 and 2) to a more comprehensive strategy (search 3).
  
  
  METHODS
  Review of 497 residency applications.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two university-based internal medicine residency programs.
  
  
  METHODS
  Search 1 was limited to MEDLINE. Search 2 added Current Contents, Science Citation Index, and BIOSIS and included searching journals by hand. Search 3 added seven other databases and contacts to librarians, editors, and coauthors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  224 applicants reported 634 articles; 630 (99%) were verified. The number of applicants with misrepresented citations varied depending on the search used (56 applicants [25%] in search 1 vs. 34 applicants [15%] in search 2 vs. 4 applicants [1.8%] in search 3).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Using a comprehensive search, we found substantially less misrepresentation than had been reported. Previous studies probably overestimated the magnitude of the problem.
authors.affiliation: John Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and Harrison Medical Library, John Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. hebertrs@msx.upmc.edu
authors.forename: Randy S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Hebert
authors.forename: Cheri G
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Scott M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Wright
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001319:Authorship; D008192:Deception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000193:education* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016239:MEDLINE; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D014481:United States