Michael Frumovitz, professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and lead author of one of the studies, said he hopes the mistakes are well-intentioned rather than willful attempts to mislead.
Earlier studies have found that anywhere from one to 30 percent of applications to training programs in radiology, emergency medicine, orthopedics and other specialties include references to published research that can’t be located by reviewers.
Dr. Frumovitz, who published his report in Obstetrics & Gynecology, found that of 258 applications to a fellowship program at MD Anderson, 44 included a reference to a publication that Dr. Frumowitz and his colleagues could not locate.
A similar study by a research team at the University of Washington team examined two years’ worth of applications to an OB/GYN residency program and found that 156 of 1,000 listed publications could not be located.
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