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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2014 Jan;118(1):200-5.
doi: 10.1213/ANE.0b013e3182a8fab5.

Academic productivity of directors of ACGME-accredited residency programs in surgery and anesthesiology

Deborah J Culley  1 , Brenda G Fahy, Zhongcong Xie, Robert Lekowski, Sascha Buetler, Xiaoxia Liu, Neal H Cohen, Gregory Crosby
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Academic productivity of directors of ACGME-accredited residency programs in surgery and anesthesiology

Deborah J Culley et al. Anesth Analg. 2014 Jan.

Abstract

Background: Scholarly activity is expected of program directors of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited residency training programs. Anesthesiology residency programs are cited more often than surgical programs for deficiencies in academic productivity. We hypothesized that this may in part reflect differences in scholarly activity between program directors of anesthesiology and surgical trainings programs. To test the hypothesis, we examined the career track record of current program directors of ACGME-accredited anesthesiology and surgical residency programs at the same institutions using PubMed citations and funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as metrics of scholarly activity.

Methods: Between November 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011, we obtained data from publicly available Web sites on program directors at 127 institutions that had ACGME-accredited programs in both anesthesiology and surgery. Information gathered on each individual included year of board certification, year first appointed program director, academic rank, history of NIH grant funding, and number of PubMed citations. We also calculated the h-index for a randomly selected subset of 25 institution-matched program directors.

Results: There were no differences between the groups in number of years since board certification (P = 0.42), academic rank (P = 0.38), or years as a program director (P = 0.22). However, program directors in anesthesiology had less prior or current NIH funding (P = 0.002), fewer total and education-related PubMed citations (both P < 0.001), and a lower h-index (P = 0.001) than surgery program directors. Multivariate analysis revealed that the publication rate for anesthesiology program directors was 43% (95% confidence interval, 0.31-0.58) that of the corresponding program directors of surgical residency programs, holding other variables constant.

Conclusions: Program directors of anesthesiology residency programs have considerably less scholarly activity in terms of peer-reviewed publications and federal research funding than directors of surgical residency programs. As such, this study provides further evidence for a systemic weakness in the scholarly fabric of academic anesthesiology.

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Conflict of interest statement

Name: Deborah J. Culley, MD Contribution: This author helped design the study, conduct the study, analyze the data, and write the manuscript Attestation: Deborah J. Culley has seen the original study data, reviewed the analysis of the data, approved the final manuscript, and is the author responsible for archiving the study files Conflicts of Interest: Deborah J. Culley received honoraria from American Board of Anesthesiology Dr. Culley is a Director of the American Board of Anesthesiology and a member of the ACGME Anesthesiology RRC Name: Brenda G. Fahy, MD Contribution: This author helped design the study, conduct the study, and write the manuscript Attestation: Brenda G. Fahy has seen the original study data and approved the final manuscript Conflicts of Interest: Brenda G. Fahy received honoraria from American Board of Anesthesiology Dr. Fahy is a Director of the American Board of Anesthesiology and a member of the ACGME Anesthesiology RRC. Name: Zhongcong Xie, MD, PhD Contribution: This author helped write the manuscript Attestation: Zhongcong Xie has seen the original study data and approved the final manuscript Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare. Name: Robert Lekowski, MD Contribution: This author helped conduct the study and write the manuscript Attestation: Robert Lekowski has seen the original study data and approved the final manuscript Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare. Name: Sascha Buetler, MD, PhD Contribution: This author helped conduct the study and write the manuscript Attestation: Sascha Buetler has seen the original study data and approved the final manuscript Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare. Name: Xiaoxia Liu, MS Contribution: This author helped with statistical support and rewriting of the manuscript Attestation: Xiaoxia Liu has seen the original study data and approved the final manuscript Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare. Name: Neal H. Cohen, MD Contribution: This author helped design the study and write the manuscript Attestation: Neal H. Cohen has seen the original study data and approved the final manuscript Conflicts of Interest: Neal H. Cohen Former Chairman of the ACGME Anesthesiology RRC. Name: Gregory Crosby, MD Contribution: This author helped design the study, analyze the data, and write the manuscript Attestation: Gregory Crosby has seen the original study data, reviewed the analysis of the data, and approved the final manuscript Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Number of publications by academic rank among program directors of anesthesiology or surgery residency programs. Data are expressed as mean ± SD with 5 and 95% confidence intervals and analyzed using a 2 way ANOVA demonstrating a significant difference (p<0.0001) in terms of publications at each academic rank between the two departments.
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