Presentation to Publication in Neuroanesthesia

institutions were significantly associated with publications after conference presentations.1 It is an interesting observation in view of what happens to the neuroanesthesia presentations in India, but the study has apparent limitations being retrospective in nature. It is unknown whether most of these unpublished presentations were actually submitted to a journal and underwent peer-reviewing and got rejected. It is also not known whether there was any difference in conversion rate between platform versus poster presentations. Platform/ oral presentations are most often competitive presentations and undergo a stringent peer-review process. Hence, there is a possibility that the conversion rate of presentations into publications could be better.2 Several factors may be responsible for the nonconversion of presentations into publications. First, the organizing scientific committee in most of the conferences hardly rejects any abstract that is submitted for presentation. Ideally, there should be a balance between quality and quantity while accepting the scientific abstracts. The existing process of encouraging scientific presentations for each interested unintentionally invites low-quality research works for presentation. These presentations eventually fail to undergo a stringent peer-review process during the publication cycle. Second, it is common to present the interim results of the research works during the meeting. While the study may be innovative and well-designed at the time of presentation, by the time it is completed and drafted, articles of similar objectives might get published by different researchers, thereby losing their relevance and low consideration for publication. Third, many journals currently do not consider case reports for publication, despite being widely encouraged for presentations during conferences. Moreover, the scope of publication from private hospitals is much less as compared with academic/public-funded institutions. This is because of the lack of research mentorship Presentations in the form of the platform (oral) and poster discussions are norms during the scientific meetings, including continued medical education activities. These presentations may be in a competitive category or noncompetitive (free paper) formats. The main objective for encouraging these scientific presentations is to bring to light new research and simultaneously fill the gap in existing knowledge. The usual categories of presentations include research papers and case reports. In addition, some of the conferences also promote presentations/exhibitions of innovations, infographics, etc. The research work gets the credit in this process, and the researcher/presenter gets due recognition on a bigger platform with a large audience. Moreover, such presentations also help enhance the verbal communication skills of the presenters, some of whom transform into brilliant speakers of national and international repute. In concordance with the scientific presentations, publications in journals give the highest degree of credibility to the research work, a wider gamut of readers, and even greater recognition to the researchers. However, a matter of some concern is the successful translation of these presentations into scientific publications in indexed journals. Krishnakumar et al1 performed an audit and retrospective analysis in the context of the full-text publications of presentations after neuroanesthesia meetings. They found that only 17.5% (40/229) of the presentations that were presented over 5 years (2014–2018) in the annual conferences of the Indian Society of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care (ISNACC) translated into publications in national (45%) and international (55%) journals. The conversion rate from presentation to publication was significantly lower than that of most meetings of other anesthesia societies. The authors have also observed that the publication rate had declined considerably from 21% in 2014 to 8% in 2018. Prospective cohort studies, randomized trials, and abstracts from academic/public