Thanking folks and recommitting to outstanding research scholarship

My remarks at the Friends of the National Library of Medicine dinner

Last night, I had the honor of receiving the Donald A. B. Lindberg Award for Distinguished Health Communications from the Friends of the National Library of Medicine. It was a wonderful evening at the Willard Hotel in DC with many people who provide support to the important work of the National Library of Medicine.

Here is the video, starting at 35 min, of my introduction and remarks. Here’s the text of my remarks:

Thank you all so much. Those were words that give me too much credit, but I will in a few minutes explain and acknowledge the people who actually did all of those things.

This is a surreal moment for a nerdy kid from Fayetteville, NC who wanted to be a doctor. It doesn’t seem possible that my name is on the list of outstanding leaders who have received this award or associated with the great Don Lindberg.

Heartiest congratulations to tonight’s other honorees. We awarded the Breakthrough of the Year to GLP-1, and it is one of the great advances of medicine in my lifetime and very much grounded in basic science. HHMI has transformed medical research under Erin’s leadership. And Dr. Newbold, thank you for your contributions. I wish I didn’t have to say this, but I have too much experience leading two of America’s great medical universities not to do so, and that is to say that until nursing is treated as a co-equal discipline with medicine both in terms of research and clinical care, we will not achieve our public health goals as a nation. Your accomplishments in research tonight are a strong statement of why that is true.

The other honorees with members of the FNLM board.

I could not be up here without the contributions of a lot of people, and thankfully many of them are here tonight. First and foremost is my wife and soulmate, Patti, who puts up with me staring out the window or at a screen obsessing about this stuff when I should be doing something else. And my children, John and Emma, who also deserved more from me all these years but for some reason still love me anyway. The three of them are all giants, and I couldn’t be more proud of their accomplishments.

The CEO of the AAAS Sudip Parikh and the board of the AAAS defend the journals and our independence even when it is very difficult to do so. When Alan Leshner hired me, he told me to raise the profile of the editorial page. I have given more than he bargained for, but they have all supported me nonetheless.

The group of people that I work with who are here tonight and around the world all work tirelessly to provide information to the scientific community and beyond. My editor, Lisa Chong, makes me sound like I know what I’m talking about and holds my feet to the fire on everything that I write. When she sends back an edited piece, all I have to do is click “accept all changes.” Our communications director, Meagan Phelan, provides exhaustive analysis of the landscape that we work in and has a gift for providing enthusiastic support and subtle critique at the same time. And our executive editor, Valda Vinson, has been my equal partner in every respect, but especially on research integrity that we are here to discuss tonight. The rest of the management team that live in DC are here and there are 150 more around the world. Each of them leaves it all on the court every day for the scientific enterprise.

The team in DC that was able to come to the dinner. That’s Lisa Chong in the second row on the left, Meagan Phelan, second from right standing up, and Valda Vinson, standing on the right.

I do want to say one quick thing that I call us all to do, and I’m sure that if Don Lindberg were here, he would agree. And that is that the handling and citing of the scientific literature is not an afterthought or side activity in the conduct of science. The ability to do so rigorously and with integrity is, after all, why the National Library of Medicine exists.

Unfortunately, we don’t treat the handling of the literature as having the same prestige or impact as the execution and description of experiments or the disclosure of novel research findings. That is a fundamental problem that we are all paying the price for.

When politicians dishonestly describe the literature, we react passionately as we should. And we’re pretty busy doing that right now.

But when we describe our own papers and exaggerate the findings, we are doing the same thing. Maybe with less deleterious impact, but it can be used against us and creates confusion.

Even more concerning, a recent study shows that 17% of citations in the general literature misrepresent the findings in the cited paper. Again, many of these errors are likely not that consequential, but the sloppiness is not a good look, and potentially much worse.

It's time we realize that citing the literature is doing science in the same way as carrying out an experiment or publishing research findings.

That’s why maintaining a rigorous scholarly record is still so important.

We must stop treating scientific scholarship as less significant than the research itself.

It *is* the research itself.

And thank goodness Don Lindberg and all of you have provided the National Library of Medicine to make it possible.

The socially awkward kid from Fayetteville is deeply grateful.

Thank you all.

Getting there

I had class at GWU before the dinner so I taught in my tuxedo. I told the students that class was Black Tie optional.

And nothing says DC like riding the metro home in a tuxedo after an awards dinner, so here’s me and Patti.

Thanks to all, and especially Steve Sherry and the folks at the National Library of Medicine who provide such extraordinary service to the nation and world.