Research Support. Your Intellectual Ownership.
mmedlab operates as a professional research assistant service. We handle the technical and administrative execution of your research. You retain full intellectual ownership, authorship, and accountability, as required by ICMJE standards and HPCSA ethical guidelines.
Our Role: Technical Co-Pilot
A registrar working 60-hour clinical weeks does not lack intelligence or research insight. They lack time and technical infrastructure. mmedlab exists at that gap. We are the technical engine. We handle statistical execution, literature synthesis, structural drafting, and formatting.
The intellectual substance \u2014 the clinical judgement, the research question, the interpretation of findings in your domain \u2014 is entirely yours.
This is not a novel arrangement. International universities, research institutions, and journals explicitly recognise professional research assistance as legitimate, provided authorship criteria are met by the named authors. Our model is built around that standard.
ICMJE Authorship Standards
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors defines four criteria that must all be met for authorship. Our engagement is structured so that you, not mmedlab, satisfy every one of them.
Substantial contributions to conception or design, or acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data
We may assist with analysis and interpretation support, but the intellectual framing is yours. You define the research question. We execute the technical work.
Drafting the work or critically revising it for important intellectual content
We draft and structure based on your direction and data. Critical intellectual revision, the substantive judgements about your field, remains entirely with you.
Final approval of the version to be published
No deliverable is submitted anywhere without your explicit review, approval, and sign-off. This is non-negotiable.
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work
You are the author. You are accountable. We are a support service. This relationship is explicit in every engagement.
On acknowledgement: ICMJE recommends that professional writing assistance be acknowledged in the manuscript. We encourage, and can assist with drafting, an acknowledgement section that transparently notes research support. Transparency is not a weakness; it is a marker of integrity.
HPCSA Ethical Guidelines
The Health Professions Council of South Africa requires that registered practitioners maintain honesty and integrity in research and publication. Our service model is designed to support, not undermine, that obligation.
Your obligations remain yours
HPCSA registered practitioners are accountable for the research bearing their name. Our support does not diminish or transfer that accountability. You direct the work. You review every output. You submit with full understanding of what you are submitting.
Research assistance is legitimate
Professional research assistance has a long-established precedent in academic and medical contexts. Biostatisticians, medical writers, and research coordinators routinely support clinical researchers without compromising authorship integrity.
Ethics approval is your responsibility
We will not assist with research that has not received appropriate ethics committee approval. Every engagement requires confirmation of ethical clearance before data analysis or manuscript drafting begins.
We are not the examining body
For MMed registrars: your university and the HPCSA will evaluate your competence independently through oral examinations, clinical assessments, and vivas. Research support assists the written component. Your demonstrated clinical knowledge cannot be outsourced.
Statement of Work
Exactly what we do, and exactly what we do not do.
We provide
Conduct systematic literature searches across 240M+ peer-reviewed articles
Perform statistical analysis (descriptive, comparative, survival analysis) on your data
Draft and structure chapters based on your data, findings, and direction
Format references and verify DOIs against primary databases
Apply PRISMA-compliant methodology to literature syntheses
Format documents to journal or university submission standards
Provide gap analysis and methodological feedback on your work
Compile and structure front matter, back matter, and appendices
We never
Fabricate, falsify, or selectively report data
Claim authorship or intellectual credit for any deliverable
Submit work on your behalf without your explicit review and approval
Misrepresent study design, sample characteristics, or outcomes
Produce content that contradicts your actual findings
Assist in circumventing ethics committee requirements
Provide services where the client has not independently understood the research
Generate references that do not exist or cannot be independently verified
Why Research Support Expands Quality Literature
The argument for legitimate research support is not just ethical. It is a net positive for the medical literature.
Clinical expertise is the scarce resource
A general surgeon who performs 400 TEVAR procedures across nine years holds irreplaceable clinical insight. If it never reaches publication because the surgeon cannot navigate biostatistics or formatting requirements, the literature is poorer for it. Not because of intellectual failure, but because of infrastructure failure.
The publication bottleneck is a public health problem
Africa generates clinical data at scale. HIV outcomes, trauma surgery in under-resourced settings, maternal health, infectious disease: all real-world evidence from contexts that are systematically underrepresented in global literature. When experienced clinicians cannot publish, that evidence gap persists.
Support does not dilute authorship. It enables it.
A cardiologist who uses a biostatistician for survival analysis, a medical writer for manuscript structure, and a librarian for systematic searches, and who then critically reviews, intellectually directs, and signs off on the final work, is a legitimate and credible author. That is how research is produced at every major academic medical centre in the world.
Verified references raise the standard
Every reference we produce is DOI-resolved and verified against primary databases. We do not generate citations that cannot be independently confirmed. In an era of AI hallucination and reference fabrication, this is a commitment to the integrity of the scientific record.
Our Commitments
Transparency
We recommend that clients acknowledge research support in their manuscripts. We provide draft acknowledgement language on request. We do not encourage concealment of assistance.
Confidentiality
All client data is handled under NDA. Research data is used exclusively for the engagement for which it was provided. We do not retain, repurpose, or share client data.
Refusal
We reserve the right to decline or terminate any engagement where we believe the work involves data fabrication, ethics circumvention, or misrepresentation.
Source integrity
Every literature claim we make is traceable to a DOI-verified primary source. We do not include references we cannot independently confirm exist.
No intellectual capture
We do not claim, imply, or accept co-authorship. Our name does not appear on your thesis, manuscript, or submission. The work is yours.
Ethics-first intake
We confirm ethics approval status at intake. For MMed registrars, this is a prerequisite for data analysis and write-up. We do not begin substantive work without it.
Questions about our approach?
We are happy to discuss how our engagement model applies to your specific research context, whether that is an MMed thesis, a journal manuscript, or a clinical audit.