Editorial: From authorship to contributorship: are we prepared to say bye- bye to by-line?

Authorship remains an important issue with most of the Journal Editors in the developed as well as developing countries. Special sessions are devoted to Authorship issues in most of the medical editors, medical writer’s conferences held all over the world but so far this problem has not yet been satisfactorily resolved. Reports from Harvard Medical School in USA state that authorship disputes are an increasing problem for the Ombudsman office there. Studies from South Africa and Bangladesh also show that authorship is a very serious issue in their scientific community. Mitcheson reports that authorship problems are important in the academic community of New Zealand.