Publication of Postgraduate Thesis in Pathology: An Introspection

Abstract

Introduction: Thesis is an important aspect of postgraduate curriculum, mandatory to be submitted for obtaining Doctor of Medicine (MD)/Masters of Surgery (MS) degree in India. The quality of research in thesis and their publication rates in field of Pathology in India has never been commented upon. Aim: To evaluate and analyse the research quality and publication rates of postgraduate thesis in speciality of General Pathology in India. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was done on 41 postgraduate theses (Pathology) submitted for review over a period of 7 years 6 months (January 2012-July 2019) from six different medical institutes from Northern India. Data were recorded and Google online search was done for each topic, author and guide. Publication status, details of publication and journals were recorded and analysed. A journal was considered national or international as declared by the journal itself on the homepage (online journals) and/or cover page (print journals) as well as by the affiliations of editorial board members. The research quality was assessed by the publication status and article citation rates. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 18.0 software. Results: Of all theses assessed, 26 (63.4%) were published in peer-reviewed indexed journals. Of these, 20 (76.9%) were published in a journal indexed with ≥2 indexing bodies. 25 (96.2%) of these were published in international and only 1 (3.8%) was published in a national journal. Most of these 15 (58%) were published within a year of completion of postgraduation. The principal investigator was the first author in 81% of published theses. The mean impact factors of national and international journals were 0.696 and 3.532±1.828, respectively. Of all the published articles, only one was cited with a citation rate of 0.5 per year. Mean citation rate was 0.02 per paper per year which was low. Conclusion: The publication rate of postgraduate thesis in Pathology was 63.4% but a low citation rate questions the quality of research. Publication of thesis should be encouraged in order to disseminate the knowledge inferred and provide directions for the future researches.

Keywords

• doctor of medicine
• general pathology
• northern india