Medical professionalism research characteristics and hotspots: a 10-year bibliometric analysis of publications from 2010 to 2019

Abstract

An abundance of publications on medical professionalism have been published in recent years. Our study aimed to analyze the external characteristics of publications on professionalism using bibliometrics, to describe its current developments and trends, and to explore professionalism research hotspots using co-word analysis. We retrieved literature on professionalism published from 2010 to 2019 from the Web of Science database. Histcite and CiteSpace were used to analyze external characteristics of publications, including publication trends and distributions of publications by country/region, institution, author, and journal. Co-word analysis was conducted to analyze research hotspots, using the Bibliographic Item Co-Occurrence Matrix Builder and Graphical Clustering Toolkit. We constructed a strategic diagram to show the state of each research hotspot and the relationship between the various hotspots in this field. Results showed publications on professionalism increased in number year by year as a whole. The USA, including its institutions and authors, maintained the top position worldwide in terms of numbers of publications and citations. Among scholarly journals, Academic Medicine has published more articles and has had higher citations per paper than any other journal. Six research hotspots on professionalism were identified, visualized, and expounded. Of these, the theme of "measurement and evaluation of clinical competence" received the most attention in the field of professionalism. The reporting of quantifiable knowledge on the characteristics and research hotspots of publications could help inform gaps in the field of medical professionalism and provide evidence and guidance for future work for researchers, physicians, and educators. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11192-021-03993-0.

Data Analysis of Physician Competence Research Trend: Social Network Analysis and Topic Modeling Approach

“…Education and experience are essential for acquiring or maintaining expertise in a professional. Song et al [ 53 ] conducted a bibliometric analysis of medical expertise from 2010 to 2019. According to these studies, academic journals on medical education primarily include studies on expertise.…”

“…This was also manifested in “hot topics” that have gradually increased over the past 10 years, such as Community-based healthcare , Career and self-management , and Continuous professional development . This indicates that topics related to Community-based healthcare are gradually becoming more important [ 73 , 74 ], as are topics related to the professionalism of individual physicians [ 10 , 51 , 53 , 72 ].…”

The evolution of data pricing: From economics to computational intelligence

“…The analysis of the geographical distribution of the articles' authors aids in identifying countries or regions with high research capabilities [ 98 ]. Additionally, the international research standing of the nation or region can be assessed [ 99 ].…”

Chinese medical students reflections on medical professionalism: A qualitative thematic analysis

“…[1] Professionalism evolves in the context of geography and culture. [2,3] Although medical professionalism is well discussed in the context of many non-western cultures and countries, [4] there is no common consensus on the concept in mainland China. “ Medical Professionalism in the New Millennium: A Physician Charter” (the “ Physician Charter ”) was introduced in China in 2005, but even ten years later students found it difficult to fulfill in practice.…”