Academic Productivity Among Hand Surgeons: Factors That Predict Future Productivity.

[INTRODUCTION] Orthopaedic and plastic surgery residency applicants with strong research backgrounds are valued for their academic productivity potential. The association between research productivity during different stages of medical training and as a practicing surgeon is not well-defined. We examined the effects of research output during medical school, residency, and fellowship on future long-term academic productivity as an attending hand surgeon.

[METHODS] The American Society for Surgery of the Hand directory was reviewed to identify actively practicing orthopaedic and plastic hand surgeons. An individual's medical school, residency, fellowship, and current practice were recorded, in addition to the year each level of training was completed. Data were collected using institutional and personal websites, US News and World Reports, Healthgrades, WebMD, Doximity, and Castle Connolly. Scopus was used to identify each surgeon's h-index, and PubMed was used to determine how many publications they had during each stage of training. A multivariate linear regression model was created with a significance of P < 0.05.

[RESULTS] A total of 230 hand surgeons-119 orthopaedic and 111 plastic-trained-were reviewed. The mean number of total publications was 23.3 ± 42.8, and the mean h-index was 8.1 ± 9.0. Newer attendings (start year 2010 to 2019) had significantly higher publication rates during medical school and residency compared with older attendings. There was a significant association between the number of publications during each stage of training and an increased attending publication rate and h-index. Plastics-trained hand surgeons had a higher number of total publications and mean h-index compared with orthopaedics-trained hand surgeons.

[DISCUSSION] Research output during medical training is predictive of academic productivity as a practicing hand surgeon. Younger or plastics-trained attendings demonstrated higher research productivity in residency compared with older or orthopaedics-trained attendings, suggesting differences in residency culture. Greater productivity during hand surgery fellowship was especially predictive of academic productivity as an attending.

[LEVEL OF EVIDENCE] N/A.