UK Paediatric Surgical Academic Output (2005-2020) - A Cause For Concern ?

Davenport, Mark, Jawaid, Wajid B and Losty, Paul D ORCID: 0000-0003-0841-5879 (2021) UK Paediatric Surgical Academic Output (2005-2020) - A Cause For Concern ? Journal Of Pediatric Surgery, 56 (12). pp. 2142-2147.

	Text UK Paed Surg 2021 .docx - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (71kB)
	Image FIG 1.tif - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (228kB) | Preview
	Text Table 1 UK Paed Surg 2021.docx - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (99kB)
	Text Table 2 UK Paed Surg 2021 .docx - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (104kB)
	Text Table 3 UK Paed Surg 2021 .docx - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (74kB)

Abstract

<h4>Background</h4>The publication record can be regarded as a key metric of the academic output of a craft surgical speciality with an almost exponential increase in the number of such publications worldwide over the past 20 years (Ashfaq et al. J Surg Res 2018;229:10-11). We aimed to examine and explore if this was the experience within UK paediatric surgery centres.<h4>Methods</h4>The academic search engine Scopus™ (Elsevier) was used to track every paediatric surgeon's (NHS or University) publication history between Jan. 2005 - Dec. 2020. This was validated by an algorithmic search of PubMed™. The h-index (citations/publication), considered a validated metric of career academic output, was also calculated for each individual surgeon. A Field-Weighted Citation Index (Scopus™) (FWCI) was used to assess impact of individual publications. Textbooks, book chapters, abstracts, duplications ("double dipping") and output attributed to UK BAPS-CASS national studies were excluded. Some output(s), not considered as relevant to "paediatric surgery", was edited. Data are quoted as median(range).<h4>Results</h4>During this 16-year period, there were 3838 publications identified from 26 centres with a "top ten" listing of those paediatric surgical units contributing over half the output (n = 2189, 57%). To look for evidence of trend(s) we analysed the output from these surgical centres in two 5-year periods (2005-9 and 2015-19) and showed an overall fall in output(s) - [730 (53.4%) to 645 (46.4%)] with 6/10 (60%) ' top ten ' centres here recording a reduction in publications. The median h-index of the 232 contributing paediatric surgical consultants was 12 (range 1-56). The best performing publication from the "top ten" centres had 96.5(51-442) citations with the FWCI being 4.5 (2.2 - 30.2).<h4>Conclusions</h4>This study highlights current paediatric surgery publication output metrics in UK centres. There is evidence of a relative reduction in outputs overall which is a cause for concern for the future, although individual publications from the 10 most active units in the UK remain highly cited. These findings may serve purpose in several ways: (i) UK paediatric surgical centre rankings may be helpful for guiding residency / trainee application; (ii) surgical research funding for the top performing units may be better facilitated and finally (iii) UK centres showing a ' fertile ground ' for nurturing and training paediatric surgeons with academic aspirations could be useful for future workforce planning.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Humans, Specialties, Surgical, Internship and Residency, Bibliometrics, Child, Surgeons, United Kingdom
Divisions:	Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Life Courses and Medical Sciences
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	02 Aug 2021 08:26
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 21:34
DOI:	10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2021.07.023
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3131733