Setting the Standards: Examining Research Productivity Among Academic Urologists in the USA and Canada in 2019

Early Career Publication Trajectory of Male Infertility Fellows During and After Fellowship

BACKGROUND

Improving evidence-based medicine through research contribution is an important aspect of fellowship training. Prior studies have investigated the research activity of urology fellows during and after fellowship. The main objective of this study was to specifically explore the publication productivity of male infertility fellows both during fellowship and in the first 5 years afterwards.

METHODS

The 19 fellowship program directors from the Society for the Study of Male Reproduction were asked to share a list of fellows from 2004 to 2019. Publications from 87 fellows at 12 programs were analyzed. PubMed® was utilized to search for peer-reviewed publications for each fellow during their fellowship and in the first 5 years afterwards. Each publication was classified by publication type (original research, review article, editorial comment, or case report), topic (fertility, testosterone, or other), and author type (sole, first, middle, or last author).

RESULTS

Some 87 male infertility fellows were analyzed, and a total of 1608 peer-reviewed publications were identified. Some 662 total publications (41.2%) were written on the topic of fertility during fellowship and in the first 5 years afterwards. Some 554 (34.5%) publications were completed during fellowship, 178 (11.1%) in year 1, 164 (10.2%) in year 2, 220 (13.7%) in year 3, 269 (16.7%) in year 4, and 223 (13.9%) in year 5. The mean number of publications during fellowship was 6.37 (range 0-57). Means for years 1-5 after fellowship were 2.12, 1.95, 2.65, 3.36, and 2.97, respectively. After fellowship, 25.3% of the fellows did not publish again. A significant difference was detected between the group mean number of publications (analysis of variance, ANOVA - p = 0.0001) during fellowship and the 5 years afterwards. There was no significant difference between the group mean number of publications between the 1st and 5th years post-fellowship (ANOVA - p = 0.5919).

CONCLUSIONS

As anticipated, male infertility fellows were most productive during fellowship, with relatively stable research production thereafter. Thus, early career support and mentorship remain important to the future academic success of fellows. Future investigation of the relationship between male infertility fellow characteristics and the pursuit of an academic career is warranted.

Top 100 Urology Influencers on Twitter: Is Social Media Influence Associated with Academic Impact?

BACKGROUND

Social media use in medicine has exploded, with uptake by most physicians and patients. There is a risk of dissemination of inaccurate information about urological conditions on social media. Physicians, as key opinion leaders, must play a role in sharing evidence-based information through social media.

OBJECTIVE

To identify and describe the top 100 urology influencers on the Twitter social media platform and to correlate Twitter influence with academic impact in urology.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

Twitter influence scores for the search topic "urology" were collected in April 2022 using published methodology. The top 100 personal accounts with the highest computed scores were linked to individuals' names, all-time h index, geographic location, specialty, attributed sex, and board certification status in this cross-sectional study.

OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

We examined the correlation between influence rank and h index.

RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS

Of the top 100 Twitter influencers on the topic of urology, the majority are from the USA (64%), male (85%), and practicing urologists (91%). Some 93% of US urology influencers are board-certified. Only 22 of the 50 US states are represented. The second most frequent country is the UK, with ten urology influencers. The median all-time h index is 42 (interquartile range 28.25-58). There is a weak positive correlation between influence rank and h index (r = 0.23; p = 0.02). Limitations of the study include the inability to validate the accuracy of the proprietary ranking algorithm and investigation of just one social media platform.

CONCLUSIONS

The top Twitter influencers in urology are mostly board-certified US urologists. Collectively, influencers have a relatively greater academic impact in comparison to the average urologist, although there is a weak positive correlation between Twitter influence and h index among top Twitter influencers.

PATIENT SUMMARY

Given the explosion of medical information on Twitter, we report the personal accounts with the greatest impact for the topic of "urology". We found that most urology influencers on Twitter are US board-certified urologists with a strong research history.

Subspecialty Selection Impacts Research Productivity and Faculty Rank of Academic Orthopaedic Surgeons

BACKGROUND

Faculty promotion and research productivity are important for the overall career trajectory of academic orthopaedic surgeons. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role that subspecialty and demographic factors play in research productivity and academic advancement among orthopaedic surgeons.

METHODS

We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of academic rank among orthopaedic surgeons in 2018. We identified academic orthopaedic programs in the United States from the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database (FREIDA) and collected publicly available data for surgeons, including fellowship training, gender, faculty rank, geographic region, and years since residency, from institutional websites. Research productivity was defined with the Hirsch index (h-index) from Scopus, and the m-index was calculated from the surgeon's h-index and the date of the first publication. Multivariate regression analyses were performed to determine the variables that are associated with associate professorship, full professorship, and the h-index.

RESULTS

In this study, we identified and included 2,879 academic orthopaedic surgeons. Completion of a fellowship in foot and ankle (odds ratio [95% confidence interval]: 2.45 [1.17 to 5.15]), sports medicine (2.15 [1.12 to 4.15]), trauma (2.83 [1.42 to 5.66]), hand and upper extremity (2.20 [1.13 to 4.28]), musculoskeletal oncology (3.28 [1.49 to 7.21]), or upper-extremity reconstruction (3.20 [1.31 to 7.81]) was associated with associate professorship. Completion of a trauma fellowship was associated with full professorship (2.93 [1.27 to 6.77]). Completion of a fellowship in adult reconstruction (difference in least-squares means [95% confidence interval]: 5.01 [1.22 to 8.81]), sports medicine (4.52 [1.00 to 8.04]), spine (5.40 [1.63 to 9.18]), or upper-extremity reconstruction (10.64 [6.15 to 15.12]) or the completion of multiple fellowships (5.12 [1.27 to 8.94]) were independently associated with a higher h-index. Women had significantly lower h-indices than men at the assistant (median [interquartile range]: 3 [1 to 6] versus 4 [2 to 8]) and full professor (17 [12 to 26] versus 22 [13 to 34]) levels. There were no differences in the m-index between men and women at any academic rank.

CONCLUSIONS

Orthopaedic subspecialty selection is independently associated with research productivity and academic rank. The differences in research productivity may be important to consider when evaluating orthopaedic surgeons for promotion. While female surgeons had lower h-indices than their male counterparts, this difference was not seen when using the m-index.