The Role of PhD Faculty in Advancing Research in Departments of Surgery

OBJECTIVE: To determine the academic contribution as measured by number of publications, citations, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding from PhD scientists in US departments of surgery. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: The number of PhD faculty working in US medical school clinical departments now exceeds the number working in basic science departments. The academic impact of PhDs in surgery has not been previously evaluated. METHODS: Academic metrics for 3850 faculties at the top 55 NIH-funded university and hospital-based departments of surgery were collected using NIH RePORTER, Scopus, and departmental websites. RESULTS: MD/PhDs and PhDs had significantly higher numbers of publications and citations than MDs, regardless of academic or institutional rank. PhDs had the greatest proportion of NIH funding compared to both MDs and MD/PhDs. Across all academic ranks, 50.2% of PhDs had received NIH funding compared with 15.2% of MDs and 33.9% of MD/PhDs (P < 0.001). The proportion of PhDs with NIH funding in the top 10 departments did not differ from those working in departments ranked 11 to 50 (P = 0.456). A greater percentage of departmental PhD faculty was associated with increased rates of MD funding. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of dedicated research faculty with PhDs supports the academic mission of surgery departments by increasing both NIH funding and scholarly productivity. In contrast to MDs and MD/PhDs, PhDs seem to have similar levels of academic output and funding independent of the overall NIH funding environment of their department. This suggests that research programs in departments with limited resources may be enhanced by the recruitment of PhD faculty

Determining the Drivers of Academic Success in Surgery: An Analysis of 3,850 Faculty.

ObjectiveDetermine drivers of academic productivity within U.S. departments of surgery.MethodsEighty academic metrics for 3,850 faculty at the top 50 NIH-funded university- and 5 outstanding hospital-based surgical departments were collected using websites, Scopus, and NIH RePORTER.ResultsMean faculty size was 76. Overall, there were 35.3% assistant, 27.8% associate, and 36.9% full professors. Women comprised 21.8%; 4.9% were MD-PhDs and 6.1% PhDs. By faculty-rank, median publications/citations were: assistant, 14/175, associate, 39/649 and full-professor, 97/2250. General surgery divisions contributed the most publications and citations. Highest performing sub-specialties per faculty member were: research (58/1683), transplantation (51/1067), oncology (41/777), and cardiothoracic surgery (48/860). Overall, 23.5% of faculty were principal investigators for a current or former NIH grant, 9.5% for a current or former R01/U01/P01. The 10 most cited faculty (MCF) within each department contributed to 42% of all publications and 55% of all citations. MCF were most commonly general (25%), oncology (19%), or transplant surgeons (15%). Fifty-one-percent of MCF had current/former NIH funding, compared with 20% of the rest (pConclusionsDepartmental academic productivity as defined by citations and NIH funding is highly driven by sections or divisions of research, general and transplantation surgery. MCF, regardless of subspecialty, contribute disproportionally to major grants and publications. Approaches that attract, develop, and retain funded MCF may be associated with dramatic increases in total departmental citations and NIH-funding

Subset Analysis of scholarly output by type of current or former NIH funding.

<p>Cardiothoracic surgery includes cardiac and thoracic surgery; General surgery includes acute care surgery, general and minimally invasive surgery, surgical oncology, and trauma and critical care.</p

Subset analysis of scholarly output by academic rank and credentials.

<p>Subset analysis of scholarly output by academic rank and credentials.</p

Extramural funding characteristics of the top cited faculty.

<p>Comparison of the (%) of faculty that are NIH funded between top-10 faculty and the other faculty in rank-groups by rank of NIH funding. The (%) that are NIH funded is indicated by Blue/Red bar, and (%) with no NIH funding are indicated by the green bar. This figure indicates that the top-10 faculty are more than two times likely to have any form of current/former NIH funding in every rank-group except the highest ranked institutions by NIH funding (Rank 1–11). In this group they are 50% more likely to have NIH funding than the “other faculty”.</p

A Bar chart comparing between 10 most cited faculty and all other faculty, grouped by deciles of rank of the institution by NIH funding.

<p>Indicated for rank-group are the percentages of all publications, citations towards which the faculty contributed. The top-10 faculty contribute between 20% and 46% of publications and 49% to 65% of all citations in a department. B Comparisons between 10 most cited faculty and all other faculty regarding mean numbers of citations per paper, grouped by rank of the department of surgery by NIH funding.</p

Study design flowchart.

<p>Study design flowchart.</p

Academic output by type of current or former NIH funding and distribution of NIH funding by surgical divisions.

<p>**Cardiothoracic surgery includes cardiac and thoracic surgery; General surgery includes acute care surgery, general and minimally invasive, surgical oncology, and trauma and critical care</p><p>Academic output by type of current or former NIH funding and distribution of NIH funding by surgical divisions.</p