Scholarly productivity of united states academic cardiothoracic anesthesiologists: influence of fellowship accreditation and transesophageal echocardiographic credentials on h-index and other citation bibliometrics

Objective: The h-index allows the evaluation of scholarly output in academics, but this bibliometric statistic has not been applied extensively to measure productivity in anesthesiology. The authors tested the hypothesis that the h-index is dependent on academic rank, American College of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accreditation of the training program, and National Board of Echocardiography credentials in perioperative transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) in United States academic cardiothoracic anesthesiologists.

Design: Observational.

Setting: Internet analysis.

Participants: United States academic cardiothoracic anesthesiologists.

Interventions: None.

Measurements and main results: Faculty members from 30 randomly selected fellowship programs with or without accreditation were identified using the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists web site. The status of each faculty member's credentials in perioperative TEE was defined using the "verify certification" function on the National Board of Echocardiography web site. Publications, citations, citations/publication, and the h-index for each faculty member were obtained using Scopus. Two hundred fifty-nine cardiothoracic anesthesiologists (204 men and 55 women) were identified (8 instructors [3%], 123 assistant professors [48%], 56 associate professors [22%], 63 professors [24%], and 9 chairpersons [3%]). The average cardiothoracic anesthesiologist had an h-index of 6 ± 7 with 28 ± 46 publications, 499 ± 988 total citations, and 13 ± 18 citations per publication. The h-index increased significantly (p < 0.05) among ranks (instructors [1 ± 1], assistant professors [3 ± 3], associate professors [7 ± 5], professors [12 ± 8], and chairpersons [18 ± 13]). Significant differences in the number of publications and total citations also were observed among ranks. Differences in the h-index among ranks were observed regardless of program accreditation status or transesophageal echocardiographic credentials. Faculty members working in American College of Graduate Medical Education-accredited programs had more publications and citations and higher h-indices than their counterparts in programs that were not accredited. Except for program directors, the scholarly output of academic cardiothoracic anesthesiologists with or without transesophageal echocardiographic credentials was similar within each academic rank.

Conclusions: The results show that the h-index increases progressively with academic rank and is dependent on fellowship program accreditation status but not transesophageal echocardiographic credentials in United States academic cardiothoracic anesthesiologists.