Author: Jonathan Leo
Position: Associate Professor
Institution: Lincoln Memorial University
E-mail: jonathan.leo@lmunet.edu
Submitted Date: February 04, 2009
Published Date: February 6, 2009
This comment was originally posted as a “Reader Response” on the publication date indicated above. All Reader Responses are now available as comments.

Here is an experiment: Try explaining to a faculty member in the humanities that professors in medical schools are allowed to list ghostwritten articles on their curriculum vitaes - documents which they use to move through the professorial ranks. Most non-medical school faculty have a hard time understanding how this practice is accepted, especially since a student would probably be expelled for doing the same thing. A relatively simple step to curing the ghostwriting problem would be for medical schools to have a statement in their faculty handbooks that, for advancement through the ranks, faculty members are forbidden to list ghostwritten articles on their CVs. Given the simplicity of this solution, one wonders why it hasn't been done already.