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The ongoing scandal in the medical publishing world took on a new twist today with news that Chiming Wei, founder and editor of a journal on the fledgling field of nanotechnology, appears to have exaggerated his credentials -- claiming to head a program at Johns Hopkins University that doesn't exist and starting a professional society with himself as president and chairman.
Indeed, an investigation of his credentials reveals that he claimed to hold a directorship of a non-existent program, co-authored only two original papers in Nanomedicine (one of which, a co-author says, he contributed to only editorially), and was accused of mismanaging the professional society to the point that some board members resigned and began a new professional group.
"I think that this individual is a good example of a field that is poorly- or under-regulated," Summer Johnson, executive editor of The American Journal of Bioethics, told The Scientist. "Everyone trusted the fact that he appeared to have high quality credentials."
Chiming Wei, president and founder of an organization called the American Academy of Nanomedicine (AANM), has the equivalent of a PhD from a Japanese institution and is a researcher in cardiothoracic surgery, but is not currently affiliated with any university. He started the group in 2005, when he was an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. The AANM's website lists Wei as Director of the Cardiothoracic-Renal Nanomedicine Program at Johns Hopkins, but according to the university, there is no such program. The Johns Hopkins press office was "unable to find evidence that this program exists," a university spokesperson wrote in an email.
Wei was also accused by experts in the field of adding his name to their journal articles, without permission or contributing in a meaningful way to the articles, in order to bolster his credentials.
Wei denied the accusations.
The journal, Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine, was established by Elsevier four years ago at Wei's urging.
The Scientist reports that Elsevier, however, did not check Wei's credentials before installing him as editor of a peer reviewed journal.
An Elsevier spokesperson said the publisher never checked Wei's publication record in nanomedicine before giving him the job of editing a nanomedicine journal. "Based on the discussions we didn't feel a need to read through [Wei's] papers, as he was quite knowledgeable on the subject," the Elsevier spokesperson added.
Elsevier has been at the centre of a controversy in recent weeks after revelations that it published several journals that were little more than paid promotional items for pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co.
People who go for this type of thing are simply willing to believe in it and as such, assume they will be protected when they do "what they have to do." Most of the time they are; it comes with the territory. No one in their right mind would belong to an activity as slimy as the medical profession without lots of immunity to slimy acts. It's the immunity which makes it glamorous.
The biggest problem in the medical profession is the mentality of those who subscribe to it. This mentality comes from a background or culture of shortsighted ambition to somehow claw your way to the top. WHY the medical profession, in this case, has become one of these vehicles to aggrandize oneself is beyond me. It's not difficult to be a doctor. All it amounts to is a situation where medical equipment is centralized.
Dr Chiming Wei is by no means the only person to fake things. They are all fakes. The whole thing is a fake. This guy is doing exactly what is required in order to belong to this contrived thing called modern healthcare. He went too far or something, or misunderstood the game and had to be damage-controlled. He was just too willing to play the part. It's better to act like you don't really want to be there but, for the sake of humanity, you donated your genius.
This article is standard fare. Every now and again, the impression must be given that a bad apple has been turfed out. The unsuspecting public restores its willingness to trust their geniusses and feels really loved once again.
Are you aware, Stuart, that when you publish these "bad apple" exposés you are actually advertizing the medical industry as a squeaky clean thing BECAUSE it looks like they are on guard against bad apples?
Can I suggest you make the comment that Chiming Wei is not by any means the only doctor who does wrong things? And that maybe, just maybe, he is being punished for something else he did to get up the nose of the structure itself? This is the only time doctors are chided by their own. Try taking one to court for killing a family member. You won't get anywhere.
Posted by: deana | June 26, 2009 at 08:22 AM
But there will always be bad apples out there. This is something that you can't expect to completely remove. The best that can be done is help people pick out the bad apples, and hope that they don't do too much damage.
Posted by: Prozac | July 02, 2009 at 03:59 AM