Originally Syndicated on June 4, 2024 @ 7:00 am
Professor Kishor Wasan: Let’s Learn More about him
Professor Kishor Wasan, a Canadian pharmacologist, had a tumultuous term as dean of the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Pharmacy and Nutrition from 2014 to 2019. His involvement in a retracted book review that exposed problems with academic integrity was only one of several questionable choices that defined his leadership.
Before taking on the role of dean, Wasan held positions in the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. While he was assistant dean of research and graduate programs from 2011 to 2014, he faced criticism from a variety of sources for his leadership style and practices.
During his tenure at UBC, Wasan served as head of pharmaceutics and national director of the Canadian Summer Student Research Program. However, his handling of these assignments was not without controversy; his decisions were often met with criticism from students and colleagues alike.
The number rather than the quality of Wasan’s research, which focused on the interaction between lipoproteins and medications and the distribution of medications based on lipids, drew more attention.
He claimed to have produced more than 550 peer-reviewed publications and abstracts, but the depth and novelty of his research have come under scrutiny.
Additionally, Professor Kishor Wasan, who also acts as its co-director, launched the Neglected Global Diseases Initiative at UBC. However, the importance and effectiveness of this initiative have been eclipsed by the challenges and concerns about his behavior in both his academic and professional life.
Generally speaking, Professor Kishor Wasan’s career has been characterized by controversy, questionable decisions, and doubts about the reliability and importance of his accomplishments in academia and the field of pharmacy.
Indeed, what was the situation involving Professor Kishor Wasan?
There appear to have been many significant changes and problems with the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy throughout the past year.
In July 2018, the university announced that Professor Kishor Wasan had been selected to serve as the new dean and professor of the faculty. Less than a year later, in June 2019, Professor Kishor Wasan tendered his resignation from his position.
Professor Kishor Wasan’s departure was sparked by a book review he co-wrote and published in The Lancet. It was found that a significant portion of the review, which focused on Canada’s healthcare system, had been taken verbatim from another review of the same book by prominent writer and Globe and Mail columnist André Picard.
Because Professor Kishor Wasan’s co-authored review was too similar to Picard’s writing, The Lancet withdrew it.
It’s important to remember that the retraction notice made no accusations of plagiarism against Professor Kishor Wasan. Instead, he stated that to accommodate their opinions, he and his colleagues had originally included a reference to Picard’s findings in their publication but then withdrew it.
Their inability to appropriately modify the text to include their thoughts was the reason for the surprising resemblance to Picard’s criticism.
While claiming that he had no intention of misleading, Professor Kishor Wasan admitted his own responsibility for the circumstances. However, the controversy surrounding the retraction and the similarities in the reviews affected his upcoming appointment as Dean of the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.
Due to his resignation, Professor Lisa Dolovich of the same faculty was appointed temporary dean for a year. As for Professor Wasan, he will no longer be serving in that capacity as his official tenure as dean of the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Pharmacy and Nutrition ended in June 2019.
A book review that was later withdrawn for drawing similarities to the writing of another author led to the resignation of a selected dean from the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. This event altered Professor Wasan’s career and led to the faculty being placed under an interim deanship.
The Consequences
It turns out that the academic journal publisher MDPI intended to release a special issue of the journal “Pharmaceutics” in honor of retired dean Professor Kishor M. Wasan for his contributions to the field of pharmaceutics.
Retraction Watch is a platform that monitors and reports on cancellations and ethical issues in scientific research. Retraction Watch informed the co-editors of the special issue that Professor Wasan had resigned because of plagiarism.
In particular, it was shown that there was proof that Professor Kishor Wasan had plagiarized a book review from 2019 that appeared in The Lancet. Plagiarism, which is defined as using someone else’s words, ideas, or works without giving due credit or permission, is a serious transgression of both academic and ethical standards.
Professor Kishor Wasan did not respond to a request for comment. Before his retirement, he held the positions of chief medical and scientific officer at Skymount Medical, director of research at iCo Therapeutics Inc., and dean of the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition at the University of Saskatchewan. Currently, he is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia.
What is MDPI?
MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) publishes scholarly journals that are available for free online. Originally created by Shu-Kun Lin as a repository for chemical samples, it currently publishes more than 390 open-access, peer-reviewed articles. MDPI is one of the world’s largest publishers in terms of journal paper output. The majority of open-access articles are also published by it.
With an annual increase of more than 50% in 2017, 2018, and 2019, MDPI published a significant number of peer-reviewed articles between 2016 and 2020. These articles were noted for processing articles incredibly quickly. The review found that 11 papers from MDPI, or 42% of the 3,500+ publications produced in 2022 by 26 open-access “mega-journals,” were published.
Conclusion
This episode raises concerns about academic integrity and the importance of giving people with the accomplishment and wealth of knowledge required to hold positions of power their due credit. Including Professor Kishor Wasan in it.
