Medical student research is low quality but spreads nonetheless, study finds

Published research by medical students continues to proliferate despite concerns about the quality of the work, according to a new report.

“Why Johnny Can’t Stop Writing: The Boom in Low-Impact, Politicized Medical Student Research,” authored by Do No Harm’s Jay Greene, highlights the proliferation of low-quality medical student research in the past 20 years. The researcher offered potential solutions in original comments sent to The College Fix.

Greene found that in the early 2000s, fewer than 12 publications listed students as authors or co-authors, but in the 2020s, more than 700 publications could claim medical student authorship. 

Additionally, between 2000 and 2006 no more than 17 publications listed a student author per year, but by 2022, 932 publications listed authors as such. 

Much of this research is low-quality and focuses on identity politics.

Greene found between 2000 and 2013, six percent of medical student publications contained at least one of nine preselected “woke terms” in the title or abstract. These terms are: “equity,” “disparities,” “social,” “justice,” “race,” “racist,” “racism,” “diversity,” or “inclusion.”

However, between 2021-2025, the number had risen to 21 percent.

Examples include “Reforming Medical Curricula to support Indigenous Students and Reduce Healthcare Disparities,” “Addressing Health Inequities in the United States: A Case Report on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Social Determinants of Health,” and “Filling the Gap: Creating a Student-Run LGBT+ Clinging to Address Health Disparities.”

He offered a solution in an email to The Fix: “By returning to objective letter grading, schools would incentivize students to focus on mastering their skill set in the clinical space rather than fluffing their resumes with baseless research endeavors.”

Greene said patients benefit when only high-quality research is being used by medical professionals.

“If they take time from those productive activities to produce lousy research, they will be worse doctors and harm patient outcomes,” Greene told The Fix.

Also, “an increasing volume of lousy research dilutes the quality of medical research, mis-informing both medical students and already-practicing doctors,” the research expert said. “When doctors are increasingly mis-informed […] they will tend to be worse doctors,” Greene told The Fix.

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