Project Dissernet (dissernet.org) points out that Russian Healthcare Deputy Minister Sergey Krayevoy defended his thesis to receive the Doctor of Medical Science degree (the highest research doctoral degree in Russia) entitled “Improvement of the System of Measures to Reduce Medical Loss in Railway Transport at the Current Stage” in 2012.
Matching content – i.e. plagiarism – is found on 127 out of total 202 pages of the thesis (without table of contents, introduction and reference list). Moreover, most part of it consists of “stolen” text.
According to official information on the Ministry of Health website, in 1983 Krayevoy graduated from Kirov’s Military Medical Academy in Leningrad, then he served in the military for 10 years and upon retirement from 2002 to 2004 he worked as a deputy director of the federal unitary enterprise “Zheldorpharmatseya” of the Ministry of Railways.
From 2005 to 2013 he headed the Russian Railways healthcare department. It was during this period that he defended his thesis. It is noteworthy that Krayevoy was appointed Russian Healthcare Deputy Minister one year after he had received his higher doctoral degree, i.e. in September 2013.
According to the experts, for his thesis the official partially appropriated the contents of the following theses: “Scientific Rationale of Medical Loss Prevention in Railway Transport” by Sergey Kantayev, “Model of Optimization of the System of Planning Health Protection Measures for West Siberian Railways Employees” by Boris Gorban and “Medical and Organizational Aspects of Healthcare Development in Railway Transport” by Galina Dyukareva.
The stolen text was adjusted for the context merely by changing phrases “West Siberian Railways”, found in the original, to “Moscow Railways”, “MPS” (the Ministry of Railways) to “OAO RZhD” and “Ministry of Health” to “Ministry of Health and Social Development”, Dissernet informs.
‘Publications on the thesis topic referred to in the author’s abstract date back to 2005-2008 and do not include joint publications with the texts donors,’ the Dissernet experts conclude in particular.
Earlier Russian Healthcare Deputy Minister Sergey Krayevoy criticized the idea of distribution of condoms and clean syringes as a preventive measure to stop HIV funded by the government. Later on, following the official’s speech the initiatives that outraged the Deputy Minister appeared to be promptly deleted from the recommendations for HIV prevention made by the department he belongs to, which in its turn outraged most of HIV-service organizations members and HIV experts.