Accessing the academic influence of vascular surgeons within the National Institutes of Health iCite database.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: A diverse array of measures are used to evaluate academic physicians. One critical factor is the scholarly influence an author has on the research discourse within a field. The National Institutes of Health recently developed the Relative Citation Ratio (RCR) as a method to quantify the influence of published research. The aim of this study was to examine the academic influence of vascular surgeons using RCR within common vascular disease research fields. METHODS: Using the PubMed and National Institutes of Health iCite databases, scientific fields of abdominal and thoracic aortic aneurysm, peripheral artery disease (PAD), cerebral vascular occlusive disease, deep venous thrombosis (DVT), and venous insufficiency were queried for the highest rated RCR articles in each category (2007-2012). To calculate the RCR, article citation rates are divided by an expected citation rate derived from performance of articles in the same field, with the resulting RCR being level and field independent. Article categories were divided into basic science, health services, and clinical research on the basis of two independent reviews. For articles, academic backgrounds of the first, second, and last authors ("influential authors") were collected analyzing procedural specialty surgery, medicine subspecialty (cardiology, neurology, nephrology), radiology/engineering, and other (anesthesia and pediatrics). Statistical significance between scientific fields and academic background was determined using Student t-test or analysis of variance followed by Newman-Keuls post hoc test. RESULTS: The academic influence of vascular surgeons varied substantially by the scientific field. Vascular surgeons compared with medical specialists were found to have the highest academic influence in abdominal aortic aneurysm research, composing 51% of the influential authors on the highest rated RCR studies (5.9 ± 0.8 vs 5.6 ± 0.8; P = .6). In contrast, vascular surgeons composed only 13% of influential authors compared with medical specialists in DVT (RCR, 2.6 ± 0.3 vs 15.7 ± 1.7; P < .003) and 18% in PAD (RCR, 1.9 ± 0.5 vs 2.1 ± 0.2; P = .78) research fields. Grouping all vascular fields of study together, no difference in RCR was found between vascular surgery and radiology/engineering. However, the mean RCR was significantly lower for vascular surgeons compared with medical subspecialties (4.5 ± 0.4 vs 6.8 ± 0.5; P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: Vascular surgeons exhibit a moderate academic influence in the field of aneurysmal disease but lag behind medical subspecialists in high-impact scientific contributions to the fields of PAD and DVT. Innovative strategies and collaborations are likely needed to increase the influence of vascular surgeons on the academic discourse of several vascular disease research fields.