“Publish or perish” is a phrase often heard in academia that can trigger a lot of anxiety and a feeling of being overwhelmed, especially in students. In short, it means that researchers are pressured to publish constantly in order to succeed, either in achieving tenure, awards, fellowships, next career steps, etc., because success can lead to more progress on research or their position in the field. And because institutions often measure a researcher’s competency based on their publications as well as research-based scholarly pursuits, this positions researchers in good standing in their affiliations and careers.
Getting experience in research is great for students! Conducting research teaches essential skills such as collaboration, ethics, different research designs, methodologies, tools, critical appraisal, and a lot more. It also helps students build their network of colleagues and establishes them as a scholar in their topic and field. Even if students decide research isn’t in their future, those skills are still valuable in other areas of their career and in clinical practice.
Conducting research with “publish or perish” hanging overhead can do more harm than good in a number of ways.
- Medical students often stress about the uncertainty in their budding career as stories and advice of needing to publish constantly circulate. Depression as a significant health problem is found in about one-third of university student populations, which is higher than the general population (Mirza et al., 2021). Psychological distress in medical school graduates can be associated with suboptimal patient care, patient safety, and professionalism (Mirza et al., 2021; Mareiniss 2004; Shanafelt et al., 2002)
- Students might not know where to start with research or feel overwhelmed by parts of it (e.g. data analysis), leading to more stress.
- They feel they must sacrifice time away from studying in order to publish. Time away from their studies might result in suboptimal academic performance.
- In order to focus on publishing as many publications as possible, quality might be sacrificed to achieve quantity. Focusing on quantity can also lead to redundant publications.
- More distressingly, there are predatory journals that understand the prevalence of “publish or perish” and solicit young researchers to submit articles. Predatory journals have a pay-to-publish model with low academic standard, no peer-review, and low standards of ethical publishing, but high acceptance rate. Publishing in these journals can be financially exploitative and a poor outlet for research.
When navigating your career and research with relation to “publish or perish”, it’s important to stop and think about what programs look for in candidates. First, all programs want candidates to complete their medical education. The good news, and perhaps bad news in some regards, is that the rest varies! Expectations of publications vary by specialty, student goals, and sometimes by location, so it’s important to look into and understand what the program wants of candidates. Ultimately, yes, quantity can be important, but quality matters just as much. What type of study or publication is this research? How well-written is it? How rigorous is the methodology? What is the quality or impact of the journal? Are you the first author?
Another important piece is to consider is that other researchers will be reviewing your application. A distressing factor of publishing is how long it takes for an article to appear in a journal since the initial submission, which can range from months to years. An appealing part of predatory journals is how fast they publish articles. But more senior researchers also understand the publication process and understand that it is often a waiting game. This is why articles under review or in pre-print are still listed in CVs with a note, to show that research and publications are still happening, just out of the hands of the researcher at the moment.
Publish or perish is intense, anxiety inducing, and can be prevalent within research fields. While methods to mitigate the anxiety is unique to each person, it’s a good idea to take a step back and try to understand the bigger picture of what your publishing goals should be. This can help you ground yourself in order set up more realistic standards of what you should try to accomplish as you navigate your career.
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