Academic productivity of Iraqi medical students in the field of neurosurgery: A literature review

Abstract

Background: The interest in clinical research is growing worldwide, and the involvement of medical students in academic and clinical research is increasing. Medical students in Iraq have started to focus on academic activities. However, this trend is in its infancy due to limited resources and the war burden. Their interest in the field of Neurosurgery has been evolving recently. This is the first paper that aims to assess the status of the academic productivity of Iraqi medical students within the neurosurgical field.

Methods: We searched the PubMed Medline database and Google scholar between January 2020 and December 2022 with a different combination of keywords. Additional results were obtained by individually searching for all the medical universities in Iraq that participated in the neurosurgical literature.

Results: Between January 2020 and December 2022, 60 neurosurgical publications included Iraqi medical students. 47 Iraqi medical students from 9 universities (the University of Baghdad 28 students, followed by 6 students from the University of Al-Nahrain, and others) were involved in these 60 neurosurgery publications. The topics of these publications are "vascular neurosurgery" (n = 36) followed by "neurotrauma" (n = 11).

Conclusion: Academic productivity of Iraqi medical students in the field of Neurosurgery has surged in the last 3 years. In the past 3 years, 47 Iraqi medical students from nine different Iraqi universities contributed to sixty international neurosurgical publications. However, there are challenges that are required to be tackled to establish a research-friendly environment despite wars and restrained resources.

Keywords: Academic productivity; Iraq; Medical education; Medical students; Neurosurgery.

Figure 1:

An illustration of the distribution of Iraqi medical students’ publications within the neurosurgical field in the past 3 years.

Figure 2:

This graph depicts the frequency of each type of publication that was published in the neurosurgical field within the past 3 years in Iraq involving Iraqi medical students.

Figure 3:

An illustration that demonstrates the numerical distribution of publications over five sections in the neurosurgical literature within the past 3 years in Iraq which involved medical students.

Figure 4:

A graph shows the numerical distribution of universities that involved Iraqi medical students who participated in neurosurgical publications in the past 3 years.