Scholarly research productivity among ophthalmology residency graduates

Purpose: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires that ophthalmology residents participate in scholarly activity during residency. However, to our knowledge it is unknown whether research publications during undergraduate, medical school, residency or fellowship training predict future academic publication performance among ophthalmologists. The aim of this study was to (1) measure scholarly research productivity (as measured by the H-index) among ophthalmology residency graduates, as measured by peer-reviewed publication output, and its relation to future publication output, and (2) evaluate whether scholarly impact of academic ophthalmologists is correlated with any specific characteristics.

Methods: This study is cross-sectional in nature and included a random sample of 50 ophthalmology residency programs. From each program, a list of graduating residents from years 2013, 2014, and 2015 was compiled and each graduate was search on Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar. The publications of each graduate were then identified and data was extracted and collected in a double blind, duplicate fashion by 2 investigators. Research publication output was then stratified and analyzed.

Results: Graduates that had a higher mean total publication (M = 9.11, SD=12.91) were significantly more likely to pursue a fellowship than those that did not (M=2.68, SD=3.16) (t234= -3.9, p = .0001). Graduates with more first person publications and higher H-index values were also significantly more likely to pursue fellowships (t234= -3.78, p = 0.0002) (t234= -3.93, p = 0.0001).Graduates that had a higher mean total publication (M = 14.2, SD= 18.19) were more likely to pursue academic careers than those that did not (M=4.57, SD = 4.88) (t234= -6.3, p = 0 .0001). Graduates with more first person publications and higher H-index values were also significantly more likely to pursue academic careers (t234= -5.17, p = 0.001) (t234= -4.84, p <0.0001). Gender proved to not be a significant determination of research pursuit in terms of publication or first person publication numbers (t234= -1.01, p = .3107) (t234= -0.53, p = .5949). However, H-index values for men (M = 3.06, SD= 3.47 ) and women (M = 2.52, SD=2.64) were significantly different (t234= -3.9, p = 0.0406).

Conclusion: The positive correlation between the graduates' research productivity and career and future research outcomes could present an interesting aspect for viewing candidates for fellowship or careers. The correlation demonstrates that students who performed research before and during residency were more productive with research after residency. This could present a positive reason to select an individual for a fellowship or academic program. The lack of research conversely indicates a likelihood of low research productivity. This could potentially negatively impact candidates. The evaluation of an individual's H-value, first-person publications, or total number of publications can then possibly be supplementary for decision making or gauge potential.