UK paediatric surgical academic output (2005-2020): A cause for concern?

Background: The publication record can be regarded as a key metric of the academic output of a craft surgical speciality with an almost exponential increase in the number of such publications worldwide over the past 20 years (Ashfaq et al. J Surg Res 2018;229:10-11). We aimed to examine and explore if this was the experience within UK paediatric surgery centres. Methods: The academic search engine Scopus (TM) (Elsevier) was used to track every paediatric surgeon's (NHS or University) publication history between Jan. 2005 - Dec. 2020. This was validated by an algorithmic search of PubMed (TM). The h-index (citations/publication), considered a validated metric of career academic output, was also calculated for each individual surgeon. A Field-Weighted Citation Index (Scopus (TM)) (FWCI) was used to assess impact of individual publications. Textbooks, book chapters, abstracts, duplications (double dipping) and output attributed to UK BAPS-CASS national studies were excluded. Some output(s), not considered as relevant to paediatric surgery, was edited. Data are quoted as median(range). Results: During this 16-year period, there were 3838 publications identified from 26 centres with a top ten listing of those paediatric surgical units contributing over half the output (n = 2189, 57%). To look for evidence of trend(s) we analysed the output from these surgical centres in two 5-year periods (2005-9 and 2015-19) and showed an overall fall in output(s) - [730 (53.4%) to 645 (46.4%)] with 6/10 (60%) 'top ten' centres here recording a reduction in publications. The median h-index of the 232 contributing paediatric surgical consultants was 12 (range 1-56). The best performing publication from the top ten centres had 96.5(51-442) citations with the FWCI being 4.5 (2.2 - 30.2). Conclusions: This study highlights current paediatric surgery publication output metrics in UK centres. There is evidence of a relative reduction in outputs overall which is a cause for concern for the future, although individual publications from the 10 most active units in the UK remain highly cited. These findings may serve purpose in several ways: (i) UK paediatric surgical centre rankings may be helpful for guiding residency / trainee application; (ii) surgical research funding for the top performing units may be better facilitated and finally (iii) UK centres showing a 'fertile ground' for nurturing and training paediatric surgeons with academic aspirations could be useful for future workforce planning. (c) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The study reveals a relative decrease in academic publication output metrics in UK paediatric surgery centres over the past 16 years, especially among the top ten centres. Despite the overall decline in output, individual publications from the top ten units continue to have high citation rates and impact.