The editorial office was contacted by someone who indicated that s/he has been working with a medical communications company on several manuscripts and has become concerned about the minimal extent of the authors’ contributions to manuscripts handled by the company. The work requested by the company goes beyond language editing, and involves developing parts of manuscripts into narrative on the basis of an outline, and also the addition of references. Based on responses from authors, our contact was also concerned about authors’ level of understanding of the work and study design being reported in the manuscript. Our contact has been asked to respond to reviewers’ comments on behalf of authors.
我们要求此人致力于此人的稿件的详细信息;一个目前正在审议期刊。在提交时，作者宣布该公司的语言编辑援助，但不是发展编辑。求职信包括关于在手稿中报告的工作的几个不准确性。在询问这些错误之后，作者承认他们遵循公司提供的求职信的模板，并且是他们第一次写这件类型的论文。
Our contact has been willing to work with us on the basis that we will maintain anonymity. We feel that there are sufficient concerns about the contributions to the manuscript that we should confront the authors about this point—however, this will reveal that we have had interactions with the person involved in the editing.
应对论坛的问题
- Should we proceed to contact the authors regarding the contributions to the manuscript?
- 我们对提出担忧的人有什么责任？
- Are there any steps that we can take to identify this type of situation in the future?
The Forum suggested there were two separate issues here—dealing with the author and dealing with the medical writer. Is the medical writer a member of any professional organization, such as the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), the European equivalent (EMWA) or the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP). If so, these organizations usually have a code of conduct that should be followed, so this is an area that the editor could look into.
The Forum suggested that the editor needs more clarification from the author. As there is some discrepancy in the author knowledge of the paper, this could be a way in for the editor to approach the author for more information while preserving the anonymity of the whistleblower. The editor needs to obtain evidence without disclosing the whistleblower.
One suggestion put forward was for the editor to check the properties of the original paper and see who authored it. This can sometimes reveal any discrepancies, although the Forum advised that in-depth investigations are beyond the remit of the editor.
As this is a clear case of ghost writing, the Forum suggested that the editor has an obligation beyond rejecting the manuscript, and that the editor should report the case to the institution and ask them to investigate.
在一个手中，论坛在应对医疗作家的角色进一步讨论了医学作者的作用，也许是未来论坛讨论的主题。我们需要更明确的医疗作家与作者关系的作用，以及与作者的关系。
The journal followed-up with the authors and stated that the editors had reasons to believe that there had been substantial input into the editing and preparation of the manuscript beyond that declared in the authors’ contributions. The editor requested comments on this and a copy of the original rough document the authors had submitted to the medical communications company. The authors indicated that they only requested input from the company after completing the rough draft, but they submitted a file that did not list as author any of the authors on the manuscript—in fact, the name listed as author on the file was that of the freelancer.
The editors decided to reject the manuscript, indicating to the authors that concerns remained as to whether the work was designed and written by the authors to an acceptable extent. The journal plans to raise the case to the attention of the authors’ institution.
更新（2015年3月）
期刊介绍了提交人的担忧，如前所述。他们到目前为止没有得到该机构的回应。期刊正在探讨以更系统的方式识别这种类型的问题，但就这种特定的稿件而言，编辑认为案件已关闭。