Pareto Points
Huge plagiarism case and a new FREE course!
What’s new this week?
A case on plagiarism
This week a doctor was suspended from the GMC register for plagiarism. It wasn’t just any doctor, but a consultant who was completing a thesis for his Masters in Medical Education. As a lecturer at a UK university, this is something that is important to me and I’ve had to call students on it too many times.
The repercussions are massive and here is a case to illustrate this!
You can read the article here (https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o2415) but I’ve tried to summarise the main learning points from the case:
- The doctor had plagiarised the work of others including his colleagues who had completed the same piece of work many years prior.
- There were also instances of self plagiarism where he copied pieces of his own work that he submitted for another degree programme at another institution.
- It was not like he wasn’t warned - he submitted the piece of work through a software prior to final submission which returned a 48% similarity score! He proceeded to submit to the institution as he assumed that the same software would not be used (not sure why?!?).
- His employer, an NHS trust made a case for him not to be suspended due to increasing pressure on the hospital and the need for him to work. He is a consultant after all. However, the GMC concluded that his actions would warrant a suspension.
- Whilst the suspension is only 6 months, the repercussions are potentially greater. He may not be allowed to obtain his Masters degree and this will be a blemish on his academic record going forwards.
The lesson here? Make sure to reference all your work! You might think you don’t need to reference your own work but this is certainly not the case. Self plagiarism is a tricky one but have a look at this short, 2 minute long video to understand how it all works:
Pareto Principles
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Mo @ Pareto
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Originally published on Substack.
