Fact-checking medical texts
By Kassel Pierre-Jean
There’s a lot of talk about fact-checking in the media. As medical editors, we perform fact-checking too, but it looks slightly different.
When fact-checking medical manuscripts, an editor’s job is to ensure that claims are accurate and citations are present and correct.
An editor begins by reading the manuscript and ensuring each claim is properly referenced. PolitiFact has a good breakdown of determining what qualifies as a claim:
- Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable?
- Is the statement leaving a particular impression that may be misleading?
- Is the statement significant?
- Would a typical person hear or read the statement and wonder: Is that true?
Statements that meet the criteria above should be supported by a reference, such as a peer-reviewed journal article, a professional medical textbook, information from a reputable website, or an article from a government agency (e.g., the CDC, the FDA).
Some claims cannot be supported:
PRODUCT X is the best drug on the market!
While other claims can be referenced with an in-line citation:
At least 50% of patients with major depressive disorder have a partial response to antidepressant medications. [Rush_AmJPsychiatry_2006/p1914/c2/para1/lines1-4]
Overall, editors will need to use their best judgment to determine what qualifies as a claim.
Medical manuscripts can have in-line citations, provided by the writer, that point out exactly where the support can be found. An in-line citation (as shown in the example above) may include a shortened version of any of the following:
- Author name(s)
- Title name
- Journal or book with year
- Site name and URL if needed
- Page number(s)
- Section number(s)
- Paragraph number(s)
- Line number(s)
- Table or Figure number(s)
If the editor finds that the writer meant paragraph 3 instead of paragraph 1, that’s an easy fix. However, if a claim mentioning disease severity cites a reference discussing a drug’s mechanism of action, it is flagged as an improper citation and kicked back to the writer for correction. It is not the editor’s job to find supporting references; the editor reviews the citations to ensure claims are properly supported.
While fact-checking medical manuscripts requires some nuanced judgment, basic fact-checking skills still apply. It’s a transferable skill—it just takes some practice to get comfortable doing it.
Fact-checking medical texts was originally published in Tracking Changes (Summer 2021 edition). Members receive a PDF of the quarterly Tracking Changes newsletter by email.
Header image by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash
