How academically productive are spine surgeon faculty members of spine fellowship programs?
A new study published in The Spine Journal examines how many publications faculty at spine surgical fellowship programs have as well as other measures of their academic impact. The researchers examined publications between Jan. 1, 2011 and Aug. 31, 2014 as well as the h-index for 1996 to the present and 2011 to the present from Scopus.
They also considered program-specific features, academic affiliation, number of fellowship positions, dedicated research time and research requirements for fellows.
There were 75 fellowship programs examined with 282 faculty members. Here are five key findings from the study:
1. There were 73 percent of the fellowships with academic affiliation.
2. The faculty members had an average of 5.5 publications per faculty member from 2011 to 2014.
3. The average h-index for 1996 to the present for programs was 13.6 and the average from 2011 to 2014 was three.
4. The factors significantly associated with the total number of publications include:
• Academic affiliation
• Total number of fellows in the program
5. There were similar findings for the factors driving average publication numbers from 1996 to the present and 2011 to 2014.
"The descriptive statistics presented can help surgeons benchmark their performance as well as that of their fellowship, as compared to others in the field," concluded the study authors. "Determinations regarding characteristics associated with academic productivity may also help programs fashion future strategic initiatives."