The Impact of Hospital/University Affiliation on Research Productivity Among US-Based Authors in the Fields of Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, Acute Care, and Emergency General Surgery

Abstract

Background: Research productivity is critical to academic surgery and essential for advancing surgical knowledge and evidence-based practice. We aim to determine if surgeon affiliation with top US universities/hospitals (TOPS) is associated with increased research productivity measured by numbers of peer-reviewed publications in PubMed (PMIDs).

Methods: A bibliometric analysis was performed for PMIDs. Affiliated authors who published in trauma surgery (TS), surgical critical care (SCC), acute care surgery (ACS), and emergency general surgery (EGS) were evaluated for publications between 2015 and 2019, and lifetime productivity. Our analysis included 3443 authors from 443 different institutions. Our main outcome was PMIDs of first author (FA) and senior author (SA) in each field (2015-2019) and total lifetime publications.

Results: Significant differences exist between PMIDs from TOPS vs non-TOPS in FA-TS (1.34 vs 1.23, P = .001), SA-TS (1.71 vs 1.46, P < .001), total SA-PMIDs (44.10 vs 26.61, P < .001), and SA-lifetime PMIDs (90.55 vs 59.03, P < .001). There were no significant differences in PMIDs for FA or SA-SCC, FA or SA-ACS, FA or SA-EGS, FA-total PMIDs 2015-2019, or FA-lifetime PMIDs (P > .05 for all).

Conclusion: There were significantly higher TS PMIDs among FAs and SAs affiliated with top US institutions in 2015-2019, along with higher total PMIDs (2015-2019) and lifetime PMIDs. These findings are of significance to future graduate medical applicants and academic surgeons who need to make decisions about training and future career opportunities.

Keywords: acute care surgery; emergency general surgery; research productivity; surgical critical care; top US academic universities and hospitals; trauma surgery.