Academic Surgical Oncologists’ Productivity Correlates with Gender, Grant Funding, and Institutional NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center Affiliation

Abstract

Background. A scholar’s h-index is defined as the number of h papers published, each of which has been cited at least h times. We hypothesized that the h-index strongly correlates with the academic rank of surgical oncologists. Methods. We utilized the National Cancer Institute (NCI) website to identify NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers (CCC) and Doximity to identify the 50 highest-ranked general surgery residency programs with surgical oncology divisions. Demographic data of respective academic surgical oncologists were collected from departmental websites and Grantome. Bibliometric data were obtained from Web of Science. Results. We identify 544 surgical oncologists from 64 programs. Increased h-index was associated with academic rank (p < 0.001), male gender (p < 0.001), number of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants (p < 0.001), and Affiliation with an NCI CCC (p = 0.018) but not number of additional degrees (p = 0.661) or Doximity ranking (p = 0.102). H-index was a stronger predictor of academic rank (r = 0.648) than total publications (r = 0.585) or citations (r = 0.450). Conclusions. This is the first report to assess the h-index within academic surgical oncology. H-index is a biblio-metric predictor of academic rank that correlates with NIH grant funding and NCI CCC Affiliation. We also highlight a previously unexpected and unappreciated gender disparity in the academic productivity of US surgical oncologists. When academic rank was accounted for, female surgical oncologists had lower h-indices compared with their male colleagues. Evaluation of the etiologies of this gender disparity is needed to address barriers to academic productivity faced by female surgical oncologists as they progress through their careers.

Gender Disparities in Invited Commentary Authorship in 2459 Medical Journals

“…8,10,11,12,13,14,22,28,29 Some medical specialty–specific studies applied basic controls for a small number of author-level variables. 3,4,5,6,7 Second, using ICC articles as our outcome allowed us to study a particular type of solicited article for a large number of medical journals and with a large sample size. Third, to our knowledge, our study is the first to provide journal-specific estimates of gender disparities for a large number of medical journals using consistent methods alongside all-journal averages.…”

Sex Differences in Academic Productivity Across Academic Ranks and Specialties in Academic Medicine

“…[60][61][62][63][64][65][66] Finally, institutional policies to promote work-life integration, such as programs and grants that target individuals with substantial extraprofessional caregiving responsibilities, have the potential to ensure all faculty have the opportunity to contribute their insights. [88][89][90] The reasons that the included studies 24,30,33,36,37,39 cited to explain the sex gap, such as lack of effective mentorship for women and the disparate influence of familial responsibilities on women, aligned with the reasons that we discussed previously. Another proposed reason was the tendency for women to have more clinical and educational responsibilities than men, which takes away from their time to do academic work.…”

ASO Author Reflections: Towards Better Metrics for Judging Academic Productivity in Surgical Oncology

“…Thus, the aim of our study was: (1) to evaluate the h-index as a bibliometric predictor of academic rank; and (2) to characterize associations between the h-index and various personal and institutional factors including gender, number of additional degrees, number of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants, National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center (NCI CCC) affiliation, and Doximity ranking. 3…”

“…5 Additionally, further studies are needed to explore the relationship between career length and h-index, especially given the high proportion of females (60%) at the Assistant Professor rank in our study. 3 , 6 Overall, future studies are needed to counteract the factors contributing to this newly identified gender disparity in the academic productivity of surgical oncologists.…”