EDITORIAL

WRITING GOOD QUALITY RESEARCH PAPERS - WHERE IS THE PROBLEM

Yesterday, I opened 6 journals belonging to

include lack of funding, and lack of standard operating
different medical undergraduate and postgraduate
procedures for promoting, supporting, and evaluating
institutes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and read the
research activities to say a few. Lack of ethical and
current issues of all of these. Out of total 76 total
technical boards by the relevant institutions again is
articles pub- lished in the recent issues of all these
a factor hindering research. Up till now, there is no
journals, only 4 were labelled as Randomized
medical institution that is providing grants for research
controlled trials (RCTs). The rest of articles were all
in this province. Mostly, grants are either provided by
descriptive research mostly frequency studies. All
foreign agencies, pharmaceutical industries or arranged
these 4 RCTs were non-blinded, without proper
by individual efforts. The recent medical reforms act
randomization, statistical analyses and poor
by the provincial government has included steps to
representation of data. Then I searched a few
pro- mote research in medical institutes, but is still
international medical journals and checked their
waiting for implementation. Another important factor is
impact factors. The impact factor of Lancet was 47.8
lack of facilities and resources. It is considered to be
(2016), New England Journal of Medicine was 72.4
one of the most important factor in the minds of
(2016), and JAMA was 44.05 (2016). I thought, Why
medical commu- nity. But even in resource
we cannot conduct good quality research and high
constrained countries, good quality research can be
quality research papers in our journals? Why our
conducted.
journals have no impact?
Lack of research training in the curriculum, lack
After going through some of the articles,
of promotion of research culture by the individual
editorials and systematic reviews to find the answers
institutes and lack of governing and regulatory bodies
of the above questions, along with personal
support are some important factors in hindering
experiences, some of the reasons for poor research
research capabili- ties on part of individual
can be divided into system level, institution level and
researchers. Most of the teach- ing faculty of
individual level insufficiencies1. undergraduate and postgraduate medical institutes is
The regulatory bodies like Pakistan Medical and not fully capable of designing, conducting, presenting
Dental Counsel (PMDC), Higher Education and evaluating clinical and educational re- search in
Commission (HEC), and College of Physicians and the country. Similarly, other factors like lack of time
Surgeons of Pa- kistan(CPSP) have not developed and financial constraints on part of individuals are
and implemented a curriculum of clinical and other factors 2.Lack of appreciation and support by the
educational research properly to develop human organizations also impact the research.
resource for the country. Although, these bodies are
Conducting high quality research especially
trying in some way or another to develop a research
randomized controlled trials in third world countries
culture but so far have not reached to a standard that
is mandatory as most of the population resides in this
can match the western research or- ganizations. The
region of the world. To add to it, more than 80% of
PMDC curriculum for undergraduate students have
trials registered in clinical trials, gov are conducted in
not explicitly included the topics and learning
western countries3. But the end users of the results of
outcomes of clinical research. The CPSP has
these trials are mostly populations residing in 3rd
included a mandatory dissertation as an effort to train
world countries. Time has come that individual efforts,
the postgraduate students in research along with a
institutional and organizational efforts are needed to
workshop both for students and supervisors, but so
improve and imple- ment the curriculum, provide
far, it has not helped neither the students nor the
grants, ease the barriers in conducting research,
faculty, supervisors and clinicians to improve their
develop proper SOPs, train and support the faculty 4.
research skills. Higher Education Commission is
Individual efforts on part of the faculty is required to
focusing on improving the quality of our medical
take part in research programs like certificate,
journals up to some extent, but has not achieved its
target yet. masters and doctoral programs. These efforts will go
a long way in developing a culture of research at
Institutional factors hindering research culture individual, organizational and national level.
 J. Med. Sci. (Peshawar, Print) April 2018, Vol. 26, No. 2 89
REFERENCES 3) US National Institute of Health. clinicaltrials.gov. 2012
1) Alemayehu C, Mitchell G, Nikles J. Barriers for 4) Harris E. Building scientific capacity in
conducting clinical trials in developing countries-a developing
systematic review. International journal for equity countries. EMBO Rep. 2004;5:7–11
in health. 2018 Dec;17(1):37.
2) Julka P. Clinical trials in India: dilemmas for devel-
oping countries. Issues Clin Res. 2007:69–71

Dr. Farooq Ahmed

Director Medical Education,
Associate Dean (Research) Khyber Medical College
and Chief Editor, JMS
90 J. Med. Sci. (Peshawar, Print) April 2018, Vol. 26, No. 2