Determining the Drivers of Academic Success in Surgery: An Analysis of 3,850 Faculty

Abstract

ObjectiveDetermine drivers of academic productivity within U.S. departments of surgery. MethodsEighty academic metrics for 3,850 faculty at the top 50 NIH-funded university-and 5 outstanding hospital-based surgical departments were collected using websites, Scopus, and NIH RePORTER. ResultsMean faculty size was 76. Overall, there were 35.3% assistant, 27.8% associate, and 36.9% full professors. Women comprised 21.8%; 4.9% were MD-PhDs and 6.1% PhDs. By faculty-rank, median publications/citations were: assistant, 14/175, associate, 39/649 and full-professor, 97/2250. General surgery divisions contributed the most publications and citations. Highest performing sub-specialties per faculty member were: research (58/1683), transplantation (51/1067), oncology (41/777), and cardiothoracic surgery (48/860). Overall, 23.5% of faculty were principal investigators for a current or former NIH grant, 9.5% for a current or former R01/U01/P01. The 10 most cited faculty (MCF) within each department contributed to 42% of all publications and 55% of all citations. MCF were most commonly general (25%), oncology (19%), or transplant surgeons (15%). Fifty-one-percent of MCF had current/former NIH funding, compared with 20% of the rest (p<0.05); funding rates for R01/U01/P01 grants was 25.1% vs. 6.8% (p<0.05). Rate of current-NIH MCF funding correlated with higher total departmental NIH rank (p < 0.05). ConclusionsDepartmental academic productivity as defined by citations and NIH funding is highly driven by sections or divisions of research, general and transplantation surgery. MCF, regardless of subspecialty, contribute disproportionally to major grants and publications. Approaches

Academic Productivity of US Cardiothoracic Surgical Centers

“…Such finding is not unexpected, and clearly reflects the positive impact of working with productive and passionate individuals, in particular when such individuals have decision making and leadership roles. We had previously demonstrated that the ten most cited faculty of a department of surgery can play a large role in driving the overall academic productivity of the entire department . Of course, confounders such as “honorary” or “ghost” authorship represent an important factor when considering this fact; however, the actual impact of these confounders was beyond our ability to evaluate, given our methodology, and would require further evaluation to fully elucidate .…”

“…We had previously demonstrated that the ten most cited faculty of a department of surgery can play a large role in driving the overall academic productivity of the entire department. 18 Of course, confounders such as ''honorary'' or ''ghost'' authorship represent an important factor when considering this fact; however, the actual impact of these confounders was beyond our ability to evaluate, given our methodology, and would require further evaluation to fully elucidate. 19,20 Of course, in today's cost conscience and relative value unit (RVU)-based environment, many qualities are asked for and expected on the part of every surgeon, and in particular of the chairperson of a department/division.…”

The Role of PhD Faculty in Advancing Research in Departments of Surgery

“…Additional information on how the surgical faculty database used in the study was developed has been previously published. 12 …”

Academic productivity in surgical oncology: Where is the bar set for those training the next generation?

“…and it has also been used on a wider scale to evaluate entire departments or institutions as a whole. [7][8][9][10] In fact, the h-index has even been shown to be more predictive of future scientific achievement when compared with the number of citations or publications. 11 Within surgical oncology, little data has been published on objective benchmarks for academic promotion.…”

“…11 Within surgical oncology, little data has been published on objective benchmarks for academic promotion. 9 This creates not only a challenging scenario for the junior faculty who are actively seeking to be promoted but also for department and institutional leadership, who are evaluating these candidates, especially compared with their nonclinical tenure-track counterparts. In this study, we sought to quantify the metrics associated with academic ranks in surgical oncologists who are training surgical oncology fellows at accredited programs.…”