German Medical Dissertations

There have been discussions about the quality of German medical dissertations going back for centuries.  Medical practitioners are quick to note that medicine is a completely different field from, say, German literature, and thus the theses are vastly different. In particular, they often don't bother about the words, it is only the numbers, the experiments, that are important. Thus, a thesis that has plagiarism on three-quarters of the pages (mainly from the habilitation of the doctoral advisor) is considered to be fine.

At many universities it is considered a medical dissertation if the work is published in an international journal. I briefly noted in 2012 one thesis that was only four pages and which was published together with the advisor in the journal, but accepted as a thesis for the student, a practice which I find questionable. If it is the student's work, the advisor should not be on the journal paper; if the advisor participated in the research and writing, then it is not a dissertation. This should be quite clear, and is also stated in the 1998 guidelines for good scientific practice of the DFG.

There is currently a minor public discussion about another such dissertation from the University of Würzburg. The doctoral student, who submitted in 1985, is the husband of a Bavarian politician, thus the apparent interest in the case. Interestingly, the German National Library (DNB) lists the ten-page dissertation clearly as being the same as a journal article that had two authors, the advisor and the student. Soon after the local press started reporting on the case being a self-plagiarism (for example, the Nürnberger Zeitung) the university issued a statement confirming that they were investigating the case, and then a day later stating that according to the rules that were valid in 1985, it was perfectly okay to submit a dissertation like this. (A discussion about the supposed plagiarism can be found on the VroniPlag Wiki forum.)

I looked up the dissertation this afternoon in the library: "Histochemical and biochemical studies in the kidney of female rats after castration and treatment with sex hormones" (published in 1985 in the Zeitschrift für mikroskopisch-anatomische Forschung, accepted as a dissertation 1986)  and found some very similar papers-accepted-as-dissertations listed in the paper and then in the DNB:

• Peptidasen in der Niere männlicher Ratten nach Kastration und Testosteronsubstitution (published in 1984, accepted as a dissertation 1985) 
• Proteinmuster im Harn von Ratten nach Kastration und Substitution mit Geschlechtshormonen  (published in 1984, accepted as a dissertation 1986)
• Renale Peptidasen und Proteinurie nach Langzeitbehandlung kastrierter Ratten mit Geschlechtshormonen  (published in 1984, accepted as a dissertation 1986) 
• Peptidasenaktivitäten in der Niere männlicher Ratten nach Kastration und Substitution mit Geschlechtshormonen (published in 1984, no mention of co-authorship of doctoral advisor in the national library, although listed in the bibliography of the first dissertation as co-authorship in the same journal)
• Ditto Cathepsin-B-Aktivitäten in der Niere von Ratten nach Kastration und Behandlung mit Geschlechtshormonen (published in 1985 with no co-authorship mention in the national library, but listed with co-authorship in the bibliography of the first dissertation mentioned). 

Now the dissertation itself consists of

• Abstract: 1 page
• Introduction: 1/2 page
• Materials and Methods: 1 1/2 pages
• Results: 5 pages, of which 1 1/2 are pictures
• Statistics: 1 page
• Discussion: 1 1/2 pages
• Literature: 1/2 page

For a journal article - this is a great structure. The journal was published from 1924-1990 and is indexed in MEDLINE. But is this a doctoral dissertation? And why is the doctoral advisor listed on the journal?

Some friends started looking for more of these dissertations, there are scores of them:

• A three-page publication with seven authors that was sufficient for one of the authors to receive a doctorate in medicine from the TH Aachen in 2012.
• A three-page publication with the advisor that was sufficient for a doctorate in Münster in 2006 - with a lovely typo: "Erectile dysfunction (ED) represents a highly prevalent social problem; approximately 5–20% of the general mail population suffer from moderate-to-severe ED."
• Six pages, four authors, one dissertation in Hamburg in 2005.
• Nine pages, seven authors, one dissertation in Hamburg in 2001. 
• ...

Isn't it time to move on to an "MD" for medical doctors and get rid of the "Dr. med."?