Unverifiable Academic Work by Applicants to Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship Programs in the United States

In 2008, it was shown that 11% of applications to a primary care sports medicine program contained unverifiable citations for publications. In 2009, the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine changed the application requirements, requiring proof that all claimed citations (publications and presentations) be included with the fellowship application.

We determined the rate of unverifiable academic citations in applications to primary care sports medicine fellowship programs after proof of citations was required.

We retrospectively examined all applications submitted to 5 primary care sports medicine fellowship programs across the country for 3 academic years (2010-2013), out of 108 to 131 programs per year. For claimed citations that did not include proof of publication or presentation, we attempted to verify them using PubMed and Google Scholar searches, a medical librarian search, and finally directly contacting the publisher or sponsoring conference organization for verification.

Fifteen of 311 applications contained at least 1 unverifiable citation. The total unverifiable rate was 4.8% (15 of 311) for publications and 11% (9 of 85) for presentations. These rates were lower than previously published within the same medical subspecialty.

After requiring proof of publication and presentation citations within applications to primary care sports medicine fellowship programs, unverifiable citations persisted but were less than previously reported.