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Sometimes half a point, often nothing. Orthopaedics and OHNS score case reports at zero 12. Vascular pays 0.5, first author only, capped at one 3; urology 0.5, capped at two 4. Plastics' 2028 gate excludes them outright 5. Write one to learn the machinery, not to move a score.
The published rubrics are close to unanimous: a case report is not a publication. Orthopaedics states that abstracts, case reports, case series, letters and book chapters all score zero 1. OHNS scores case reports, simple reviews and "How I do it" articles at zero 2. Vascular pays 0.5 points for a first-author case report or editorial and caps that at one item, inside a section worth 9 3. Urology pays 0.5 for a first-author case report, review or research letter, capped at two, and only from journals with an impact factor of 3.0 or above 4. Neurosurgery is the outlier, scoring a sole first-author case report or technique article at a full 1.0 point — out of a section that maxes at 2 6. General surgery counts them but caps them at three inside a section worth five 7. From the 2027 selection round, plastics' eligibility gate accepts no case reports, posters, book chapters or conference abstracts at all 5.
Where nothing is published, nothing is known. Dermatology's application splits publications into eight types — original research, systematic reviews, chapters, articles, brief reports, case reports, letters and DermNet articles — and publishes no points for any of them 8. The split implies differential scoring; the College has never confirmed it.
So why write one? Because it is the cheapest way to learn submission, revision and consent, and it opens a door to the person who supervises it 9. Patient consent is mandatory and some journals have their own consent forms, so ask the team before you start writing — including who else intends to write it up 9.
The counter-argument: case reports are harder to place than an audit, and an audit scores in more rubrics 9. If you want one paper before applications, do the audit.
r/ausjdocs — community view, not policy; verbatim, cautionary beside positive where both exist, every quote linked to the comment.
You need to get the patient documented consent. Some journals have specific consenting requirements. Ask a consultant/Reg for advice on the local process/policy.
The worth of case reports as research experience depends on which college you are applying to. Most give very few points if any, regardless of what journal they are published in.
case reports demonstrate you have at least some experience negotiating the mechanics of ethics, journal submission processes, revising, etc.
there's diminishing returns to pump out more then one case report
Asked 4 times on r/ausjdocs (title-regex count) · encoded by hand from the numbered sources, retrieved 12 Sept 2026; no AI wrote any of it. how the count was made
asked_count = posts in r_ausjdocs_posts.jsonl (19,145 posts, 2022-09-13 to 2026-09-12) whose title matches /case report|case series|letter to the editor/i. Quotes are the highest-scoring comments in the four case-report threads, balanced so the 'worth nothing' verdict sits beside the 'worth doing once' one, plus the consent mechanics.