Fraud in scientific research and its implications for healthcare professional educators

This study aims to contribute to the reflection on the impact of fraud in medical publications and to offer suggestions to health science educators to limit the potential harm of fraudulent publications concerning scientific literature integrity and patient wellbeing.

We analyze the retractions of Joachim Boldt and Yoshitaka Fujii, the two researchers with the most cases of retractions due to fraud. The Web of Science and Retraction Watch Database were consulted in December 5th 2023. We also carried out a bibliographic search on scientific integrity and critical thinking to identify ways for preventing fraud and mitigating its consequences.

194 studies were obtained for Boldt and 151 for Fujii. These studies generated 5,450 citations for Boldt and 2,245 for Fujii. After filtering to include only citations from systematic reviews, 734 systematic reviews were found to have cited Boldt's retracted studies, while 140 systematic reviews cited Fujii's studies. The literature reports that several non-technical skills linked to leadership and management are important for researchers, such as effective communication, teamwork, coaching, task sharing, strategic planning, budgeting, personnel selection and evaluation, and situational awareness.

All actors must work to foster a culture of integrity at all stages of the research process to prevent harm to patients. It is essential to identify appropriate pedagogical strategies to influence the skills, attitudes and behaviors of future professionals. Developing integrity and critical judgment may require the use of different methodological approaches to those traditionally used in the medical sciences.