Gelfand, Mikhail Sergeevich D.Sc. in Biology, Cand. Sci. in Physics and Mathematics, Professor, Member of the European Academy, Moscow, Russia mikhail.gelfand@gmail.com
Abstract Large volumes of analyzed corrupted medical dissertations collected by Dissernet allow one to form some preliminary conclusions. In most cases plagiarism is accompanied by data manipulations. The simplest ones are change of studied cohorts (dates, hospitals); dates and patient's identifiers (initial, age) are changed in descriptions of clinical cases. More malignant is changing the diagnose and treatment while retaining numerical data such as the treatment efficacy, laboratory analyses etc. which is direct falsification. More subtle manipulations are changing one digit in a number; in many cases it is not done consistently so that some numbers (usually at top rows of tables) are manipulated, while others (in bottom rows) remain unchanged. Areas most prone to breaches of academic ethics are health care organization, various types of medical economics, and balneology.
Keywords: academic ethics, medicine, plagiarism, data falsification, Dissernet
