Pub reviewer, conference speaker useful for residency app?

[docren004]

My buddy wanted me to ask whether it was likely to make any significant difference on his residency app if he peer reviews a publication, and if he speaks at an online conference. He periodically gets invitations to peer review and to speak at non-prestigious random conferences. In theory it might be kind of nice to add these things to ERAS as a CV stuffer, but would it actually be worth the time and effort to do so?

For context, this person is first author on 7 publications (review and hypothesis papers) but has never been associated with a lab, attends a mid/low-tier public MD school as an out of state resident, and isn't totally sure what field or kind of residency he wants to go into, but is primarily interested in IM and possibly specializing one day.

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[GoSpursGo]

As usual, it depends exactly what these things are and what he does. Can you give us more context about what the audience for the online conference is and what his role is?

Peer reviewing is probably not worth anything

 

[docren004]

As usual, it depends exactly what these things are and what he does. Can you give us more context about what the audience for the online conference is and what his role is?

Peer reviewing is probably not worth anything

Most of their research is about Alzheimer's disease, so most of the conferences are geared towards people involved in Alzheimer's, neurodegenerative disease, neurology, or brain disorder research. One article was about obesity.
One invitation was to this AD/PD conference.
Another is to Brain Disorder 2023 conference
Another was "3rd Edition of World Congress on ENDOCRINOLOGY, DIABETES, AND METABOLISM" (EDM-2022 Congress)

I think in most of the cases the invitation was basically to submit an abstract and speak. Not keynote or anything like that.

Most if not all of these conferences cost money to speak at, or at least to travel to.

To be clear, none of these conferences are prestigious conferences of US societies with all expenses paid or anything like that. A couple offered to pay for the hotel stay if attending in person, but not airfare. There seems to be a cottage industry of conference organizers that make money off of people paying money to attend and speak, and that's where all these invitations are coming from. That being said, my guess is that no one reading an ERAS app would delve too deeply into how prestigious the conference actually is though, so my guess is that it might look more impressive than it really is.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Most of their research is about Alzheimer's disease, so most of the conferences are geared towards people involved in Alzheimer's, neurodegenerative disease, neurology, or brain disorder research. One article was about obesity.
One invitation was to this AD/PD conference.
Another is to Brain Disorder 2023 conference
Another was "3rd Edition of World Congress on ENDOCRINOLOGY, DIABETES, AND METABOLISM" (EDM-2022 Congress)

I think in most of the cases the invitation was basically to submit an abstract and speak. Not keynote or anything like that.

Most if not all of these conferences cost money to speak at, or at least to travel to.

To be clear, none of these conferences are prestigious conferences of US societies with all expenses paid or anything like that. A couple offered to pay for the hotel stay if attending in person, but not airfare. There seems to be a cottage industry of conference organizers that make money off of people paying money to attend and speak, and that's where all these invitations are coming from. That being said, my guess is that no one reading an ERAS app would delve too deeply into how prestigious the conference actually is though, so my guess is that it might look more impressive than it really is.

Unfortunately, these are all clearly predatory conferences. And it's not a cottage industry, it's really quite malignant and a major problem infiltrating academia where they prey on students and junior faculty who need something to put on their CV.

I honestly would strongly consider not listing them at all, as it is obvious from even a cursory review. Anyone in academia will recognize these websites as predatory. And in the future, if he gets an email from anything that starts, "Dear Dr. Researcher, based on your eminence in the field as evidenced by your recent publication, we want to invite you to..." I would just delete it. These are not legit.

 

[docren004]

Unfortunately, these are all clearly predatory conferences. And it's not a cottage industry, it's really quite malignant and a major problem infiltrating academia where they prey on students and junior faculty who need something to put on their CV.

I honestly would strongly consider not listing them at all, as it is obvious from even a cursory review. Anyone in academia will recognize these websites as predatory. And in the future, if he gets an email from anything that starts, "Dear Dr. Researcher, based on your eminence in the field as evidenced by your recent publication, we want to invite you to..." I would just delete it. These are not legit.

Ok, glad I asked. Thanks!

 

[operaman]

Yeah these don’t look legit at all.

That said, being a peer reviewer for a known journal in your field is something that would get noticed. Invited talks at legit conferences would also be noticed, though at that point you would be pretty well known anyhow.

I definitely knew people like this is med school - usually MD-PhD students who were very productive all around and did really good work. They tended to match exceptionally well and the ones I know personally are now working in academic jobs.

 

[mvenus929]

Yeah... I get emails periodically asking for peer review of some random topic in some random journal that on review is clearly a predatory journal. And every once and a while get asked to be a speaker at a conference somewhere. None of them are with known journals or major conferences in my field, so I ignore them, as should he.

If he gets invited to be a peer reviewer in a journal he is published in, great. List it. Similarly, if it's a good conference in his field of interest and he gets invited to be a speaker, by all means, go. But at minimum they should be waiving any conference fees for the presentation. Unless it's a poster/oral presentation that he submitted, but then he usually qualifies for a travel grant for being a trainee.

 

[docren004]

@GoSpursGo , @operaman , and @mvenus929,

Gut impressions on whether these conferences are "real" or "predatory," if you would be so kind?

1. World Conference of Neurology by the World Federation of Neurology
2. NeuroTalk 2023
3. Analytix-2023
4. CEB-2023

 

[GoSpursGo]

@GoSpursGo , @operaman , and @mvenus929,

Gut impressions on whether these conferences are "real" or "predatory," if you would be so kind?

1. World Conference of Neurology by the World Federation of Neurology
2. NeuroTalk 2023
3. Analytix-2023
4. CEB-2023

Honestly outside of my specialty so it would be hard for me to tell on a quick glance. I would ask your mentors in the field.

 

[docren004]

@GoSpursGo , reasonable answer, thank you. I asked a neurologist at my school whom I know about the first one, because I think that one is a real conference, mainly because I looked it up and the World Federation of Neurology does appear to be a real professinoal organization. Also, it says on their website that their abstracts are peer reviewed, and although there are registration fees, students can attend virtually for free. The "realness" of the other ones seems much more debatable to me, and they don't appear to be connected to any neurology professional society, so I didn't ask him about those ones.

 

[GoSpursGo]

@GoSpursGo , reasonable answer, thank you. I asked a neurologist at my school whom I know about the first one, because I think that one is a real conference, mainly because I looked it up and the World Federation of Neurology does appear to be a real professinoal organization. Also, it says on their website that their abstracts are peer reviewed, and although there are registration fees, students can attend virtually for free. The "realness" of the other ones seems much more debatable to me, and they don't appear to be connected to any neurology professional society, so I didn't ask him about those ones.

Yeah the first one looked fairly legit to me but I don't know enough to be sure. And then I didn't look at the other three