Salt Lake City, UT: July 14, 2026 – Today, Do No Harm released a report that exposes how low-quality medical student–authored research has increased over the last two decades, corresponding with medical schools’ elimination of letter grades. The report concludes that the increased volume of studies authored or co-authored by students is driven by their desire to pad their résumés in the absence of other academic distinctions. Moreover, the student research in question is disproportionately focused on politicized topics.
The report, titled “Why Johnny Can’t Stop Writing: The Boom in Low-Impact, Politicized Medical-Student Research,” conducts an advanced search through the medical-journal database PubMed to identify publications authored by medical students and, separately, those that use politicized terms such as “equity,” “justice,” “racism,” and “diversity.”
“Without the use of the letter-grade system, students are searching for other ways to stand out for fellowships and residency programs, which has inevitably led to an arms race in publications authored by medical students,” said Jay Greene, PhD, Director of Research at Do No Harm. “To compound the problem, quantity is incentivized over quality — leading to shoddy research and focus on politicized topics. Our report reveals the many factors responsible for the degradation of the research enterprise and offers proposed solutions to correct course. 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 résumés with baseless research endeavors.”
Click here to read the full report.
The report also conducts a thorough analysis of two competing studies. The first, by Hausner et al., concludes that medical research grew in both volume and quality between 2003 and 2023. The second, by Elliott et al., finds that the rise in student-authored articles led to a notable decline in quality. Do No Harm’s analysis concludes that the Hausner study excluded 72 percent of medical-student publications in its analysis, distorting its findings, In addition, the primary metric used in the Hausner study, Relative Citation Ratio (RCR), is an unreliable indicator of article quality.
The report cites several examples of low-quality and politicized research, calls for medical students to redirect their time and energy toward excelling in coursework and acquiring the knowledge needed to be excellent physicians, and furthers Do No Harm’s larger mission to depoliticize medical research and recenter medical education on rigor and skill.
Do No Harm, established in April 2022, has rapidly gained recognition and made significant strides in its mission to safeguard healthcare from ideological threats. It has over 50,000 members, including doctors, nurses, physicians, and concerned citizens across all 50 states and 26 countries.
