Author and authorship in medical journals

Introduction. There is an on-going debate on questions of authorship in the scientific publications. Adherence to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations for medical journals is low, which should be cause for reflection. Development. We have reviewed the authorship criteria from ICMJE recommendations as well as some problems on authorship as gift authors or ghost authors. We have also analyzed the increasing number of signers on scientific papers and its potentials causes and the responsibility of the scientific editors in that regards. We describe the criteria from our Journal on authorship. Conclusions. Authorship criteria for our journal include demonstration of their relevance in the development of the research and manuscript as well as the responsibility in it. This line is not as restrictive as that of the ICMJE criteria, whose recommendations may not be easy to adapt to the current organization of the multidisciplinary research groups.