An Outrage or "Cultural Difference"?
Author(s):
Caroline Whitbeck, Ph.D.
You and your doctoral supervisor in your home department have been collaborating with a medical research team at a nearby medical school. Because your thesis research has direct applications in a new medical technology, your research funding for the year has been provided by the medical school lab directed by Dr. Distinguished.
You have prepared a paper for publication and show your draft to one of your medical coauthors. Your coauthor tells you that Dr. Distinguished's name is always included as the final author on work funded by his lab. You object, pointing out that Dr. Distinguished has very little idea of what the research is about. Your coauthor explains that listing the lab head as the last author is often the practice in medicine, and it certainly is "local custom" here.
What, if anything, should you do?
Cite this page:
Caroline Whitbeck, Ph.D.
"An Outrage or "Cultural Difference"?"
Online Ethics Center for Engineering
9/10/2006 9:52:57 PM
National Academy of Engineering
Accessed: Saturday, October 11, 2008
<www.onlineethics.org/CMS/research/modindex/resethpages/outrage.aspx>