Resume fraud: unverifiable publications of urology training program applicants

We examined the incidence of resume fraud among urology residency applicants by determining the rate of misrepresented publications listed in applications to a urology residency program.

Applications from all 147 urology residency applicants to a program from the 2007 application cycle were analyzed. Verification of listed publications was attempted by querying PubMed, Google Scholar and MEDLINE. Univariate analysis was conducted to assess associations between unverifiable publications and applicant demographics.

Of the applicants who submitted publications 19% (14 of 71) had at least 1 unverifiable publication, which represented 9% (14 of 147) of the entire applicant pool. There were no statistically significant associations between misrepresented publications and applicant demographics.

Applicants had a low but still unacceptable rate of misrepresented publications and this trend in academic medicine is of great concern.