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UNFUNDED RESEARCH BY PATHOLOGISTS, INTERNISTS AND SURGEONS.

J.J. Berman, A. Borkowski, H. Rachocka and G.W. Moore.

The prevalence of unfunded research in the areas of pathology, internal medicine and surgery was compared by counting the number of funded and unfunded papers in the 10 most cited journals for each field of medicine. Ten consecutive articles, excluding case reports and review articles, for the years 1987, 1989 and 1991 from each of the ten journals for the three areas of medicine were sampled (total of 900 articles). Unfunded articles accounted for 60% of articles by pathologists, 62% of articles by internists and 74% of articles by surgeons. Among articles supported by NIH funds, the percentages of funded articles where the first author of the article was also the principal investigator listed on the grant were: 38.6% (pathology), 26.9% (internal medicine) and 16.7% (surgery). In the major fields of medicine, most journal contributions are unfunded. Also, the first authors of funded papers are seldom funded principal investigators.