Whether people like it or not, if you’re interested in academic neurosurgery, publishing is basically essential. There are not many residents with the time, university resources, desire (and a bit of luck) to dedicate 1-2 years in a lab and publish impactful basic science work. For everyone else, being productive academically is one of the few ways to distinguish yourself to fellowship directors. It also helps you build relationships with faculty at your own institution. Apart from the practical aspect, I would also argue that publishing a series of low-impact papers is in fact meaningful. It forces you to learn the literature, identify open questions in your field, and ultimately become a better doctor. Everyone has seen dinosaur attendings whose practice patterns are decades out of date. If you set the bar for something to be meaningful at “must change medicine,” then not much is worth doing. My perspective as someone going into academic neurosurgery who published 90+ papers in residency.
Sure. But if your idea of identifying gaps is publishing another paper showing that low socioeconomic status correlates with non routine discharge I’m not sold. Leave epidemiology to epidemiologists.
How do we lower adjacent segment disease, intraprocedural stroke, neurological deficits after SAH, etc. then I’m all ears.
We all know junk when we see it.
Is anyone else over the ad hominem attacks on this message board? The vast majority of neurosurgery residents I've met are incredible, thoughtful people that are dedicated to taking care of the critically ill, neurosurgical patient. Jake Young is one of them and it is odd to see him (and others) be picked apart on this board. The whole thing reeks of hatorade and is rather unbecoming of our specialty.
Quote:Sure. But if your idea of identifying gaps is publishing another paper showing that low socioeconomic status correlates with non routine discharge I’m not sold. Leave epidemiology to epidemiologists.
How do we lower adjacent segment disease, intraprocedural stroke, neurological deficits after SAH, etc. then I’m all ears.
We all know junk when we see it.
What a mean and arrogant thing to say. How do you know for sure if something is useless? Personally, I used to work in a lab and one day I stumbled across a paper in an obscure paper published in the 1990s, that impacted our work.
^Thats different. The tomes of demographic crud getting published every month is not going anywhere. It isn’t neurosurgery, everyone knows it but is afraid to call it what it is. Useless drivel.
I think pumping out a bunch of CV-fodder like simple case reports and epidemiology studies still have a place. You are assuming the benefit of doing those studies is for the attending neurosurgeon. It rarely is. It is for the medical student or junior resident. I do not think there is a single person at the medical school level or beyond that would not recognize which papers are more heavy hitting. Unfortunately, a lot of those projects are time/resource intensive, and there are several people in the chain that do not have either. So, to demonstrate their ability to take a project/idea from conception to publication will require them to publish a surgical case series in a journal with IF of 3 or something. That's fine. It gives the junior person a chance to demonstrate interest/self worth, and the attending a chance to mentor those coming up. If someone has been involved in 100+ such publications while a resident, I think thats great. It means they are collegial and willing to be part of a team, and/or they are the stats guy. Either way, it shows some mark of productivity. No use in crapping on those papers, they are here to stay. They are a great thing to do while the senior person is focusing on the bigger picture. Our job as surgeon-scientists is to translate projects in our clinical practice into investigations in the lab, and then translate those back into potential therapies. The end game for the neurosurgeon is to help the patient. It is not to be a better scientist than the PhD. So in that sense, it makes sense neurosurgeons pump out more than just basic science papers, its important to have clinical papers too. And since the concept of our field is not universal (unlike something like obesity or DM or something), our studies won't often be in NEJM/Lancet. So we instead publish in stuff like JNS/WNS/Operative. Hope that perspective helps put things into context...
Friends, we are all aware of the current circumstances. A full 90% of what masquerades as peer-reviewed research in our esteemed field exhibits willful ignorance of causal inference or is yet another hopelessly confounded retrospective review. In a word: drivel. Perusing this thread, one cannot be surprised by the cynicism with which many accept the lamentable status quo. After all, professors need tenure/grants, journals have long abandoned the pursuit of quality, and a lengthy CV dazzles midwits. Alas, such is human nature, this is how incentives align, and we are far from the only scientific field dealing with these vexing problems. So be it.
Yet, amidst the gloom, we find a glimmer of hope: this very thread and a few of its contributors have inadvertently exposed the true scourge plaguing our field. Having recognized these glaring issues, rather than proffering potential solutions or at the very least bemoaning their existence, the bootlickers above are shameless enough to defend the woeful state in which we find ourselves. Not all of us will have the sagacity or drive to publish insightfully, but I exhort each and every one of us to do our part in safeguarding our discipline by subjecting the charlatans in our midst to the derision and contempt they so richly deserve.
^Bro thinks he was born in Victorian-Era London. Can write write a case report about him and submit to World NS?
(04-09-2023, 05:58 PM)Guest Wrote: Friends, we are all aware of the current circumstances. A full 90% of what masquerades as peer-reviewed research in our esteemed field exhibits willful ignorance of causal inference or is yet another hopelessly confounded retrospective review. In a word: drivel. Perusing this thread, one cannot be surprised by the cynicism with which many accept the lamentable status quo. After all, professors need tenure/grants, journals have long abandoned the pursuit of quality, and a lengthy CV dazzles midwits. Alas, such is human nature, this is how incentives align, and we are far from the only scientific field dealing with these vexing problems. So be it.
Yet, amidst the gloom, we find a glimmer of hope: this very thread and a few of its contributors have inadvertently exposed the true scourge plaguing our field. Having recognized these glaring issues, rather than proffering potential solutions or at the very least bemoaning their existence, the bootlickers above are shameless enough to defend the woeful state in which we find ourselves. Not all of us will have the sagacity or drive to publish insightfully, but I exhort each and every one of us to do our part in safeguarding our discipline by subjecting the charlatans in our midst to the derision and contempt they so richly deserve.
As long as we all maintain our ligma we’ll be fine
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