http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8364447.stm

This story was just reported on by News 24 and it said that a student had been researching the atrocity and had tracked down this man. He found his phone number etc. and then his professor rang him and interviewed him. In essence it seemed like the student had done the work and the prof. had taken credit. It didn't say whether the student was a postgrad or undergrad, but I'm guessing by the level of detail it was postgrad.

I am lucky in that my supervisor doesn't take advantage and is very fair. However I know of lots of students whose supervisors make them do lots of teaching, research etc. for them and this story made me think of that.

Anyone got any similar stories? Or comments?

Yes, I know of a case where the postgrad did the work and the sup wrote up the work and took credit for it. (At some point I considered working for this guy, but this made me seriously concerned and I will try and stay away from him in my future postdoc career... ?!)
Helping out your sup with a bit of teaching or some research work, I think, is okay, as long as it does not take over and it becomes more important or time consuming than your actual PhD work.

I agree that some teaching and research is good - in fact I think it is an essentail part of being a PhD student. It just came across on the news that this student had done the work and the supervisor was receiving the glory - I would've been miffed if I was the student to put it mildly!!

There is a pecking order and grad students are near the bottom of it. I spent 3 years in a lab, often working ridiculous hours (sometimes going home after midnight), and was first author on a pretty good paper. The university made a press release for the paper and omitted my name from it, but gave my second supervisor a mention although he did absolutely nothing.

The press contacted my supervisors and they gave interviews with various newspapers and science magazines but again I didn't get a mention. I showed my mum (naturally!) and posted it on facebook and everyone was like -- your name isn't there. I didn't make an issue of it as at least I was first author on the paper.

I guess that's just how it works in academia. In future when we're supervisors I suppose we'll take credit for our students' work too.

My second supervisor was so out the loop, in fact, that he made some ridiculous comments in one press interview and completely mixed up two drugs we were working on (as he always did in our sup. meetings). When I read it I just buried my face in my hands and thought 'plonker!', but was somewhat consoled by the fact most readers wouldn't know any better.