Title: Bioethics and Medical Education
What Caught Our Attention: As we’ve said before, you can’t make this stuff up: An article on bioethics had its own ethical issues to deal with. It turns out, the authors had “substantial unreferenced overlap” with another article, that “overlap” including the article’s title. Here’s a side by side comparison of the first page, highlighting the matching text:
This isn’t the first time we’ve been struck by the irony of a retraction: There were the plagiarism guidelines retracted for plagiarism, and a paper on ethics in publishing that was retracted for duplication. Another noteworthy point: It took 10 years for the publisher to notice and act on the overlap. (Nope, that’s not a record.)
Journal: Scottish Medical Journal
Authors: M S Sajid
Affiliations: Worthing Hospital, UK
At the request of the Journal Editor and the Publisher, the following article has been retracted.
Sajid M.S. Bioethics and Medical Education. Scottish Medical Journal 2008; 53(2): 62–63. DOI: 10.1258/rsmsmj.53.2.62
The above paper has substantial unreferenced overlap to the following paper:
Jafarey A.M. Bioethics and Medical Education. Journal of Pakistan Medical Association 2003; 53 (6): 210–214.
Date of Article: May 2008
Times Cited, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science: 0
Date of Notice: January 30, 2018
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There may now be enough bioethical failures in bioethical papers to conduct a meta analysis.
Another favourite is “Ethical Issues in Surgical Treatment and Research” (Current problems in Surgery 40, 348, 2003). The entire 92 page issue of this obscure journal was retracted for plagiarism.