Not listed as author despite doing statistical work I work in a medical field and recently contributed statistical analysis for a paper and was not listed as a co-author despite being told I would be. I spent a few weeks fielding questions about this paper and feel as though my contribution was significant. There are many people listed who I am certain contributed nothing to this paper.
Should I say something to my PI or just let it go? I understand the authorship likely can't be added to at this point but I want to express that I am slightly hurt. However since I am not vying for academic jobs I don't want to come off as being needy or petty since it ultimately won't matter for my career.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Talk to the PI who said you would be an author, or your boss, whoever you are more comfortable talking to first. Best to assume it was an honest mistake (there's really no cost to adding another author in medical sciences). There's a bit of gray area on when statistical support is included/not included in authorship in medical science.
Let them know you expected to be an author (and remind them of your previous conversation), but that you found a preprint that didn't have you listed.
A preprint is just a preprint; hopefully you can still be included on a submission of the paper to an actual journal.