All research contributions are equal: some more so than others

Rahnejat, Okhiria and Webster propose in a recent article that the United Kingdom Foundation Programme Office (UKFPO) redesign the point-based system used to score foundation programme applicants.1 Their proposals centre on the allocation of points related for student involvement in published research. The authors seek to establish a hierarchy of published research such that some kinds of research and authorship (such as being first author, or the work being a randomised controlled trial (RCT)) are valued greater than others (letters to the editor—the present one included!) As a medical student who will soon be grappling with the UKFPO, I seek to register my dissent. The authors rightly highlight that ‘qualifying publications as ‘high’ or ‘low’ quality is not clear-cut’.1 Moreover, their proposed system ignores qualitative research entirely. In medicine, qualitative studies are concerned with the experiences of those involved in healthcare—patients and staff to name...
Source: Postgraduate Medical Journal - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Letter Source Type: research