Evaluation of theses in the field of forensic medicine in Turkey

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the scientific efficacy of medical specialism theses prepared in the Forensic Medicine Departments of universities in Turkey, to examine how visible these are to the scientific community, and to determine the links between an academic career and thesis publication. In this retrospective cohort study, a total of 383 forensic medicine specialism theses were evaluated from The National Thesis Centre internet address between 1983 and 2020. The most common research subject was clinical forensic medicine and trauma with 58 (15.1%) theses. 307 (80.2%) of theses were published. While 307 (80.2%) of the theses were not presented as a publication in a scientific journal, 76 (19.8%) were converted to a scientific publication, of which75 (98.6%) were published in Google Scholar, 39 (51.3%) in SCI-E, 31 (40.8%) in PubMed, and 2 (2.6%) in SCI journals. The provision of courses including the process of thesis writing, applying for ethics committee approval, statistical analysis and evaluation, the rules of writing a scientific article, and the selection of a scientific journal, will encourage young researchers on the subject of scientific publication and will play an important role in the improvement of the quality of publications.