Abstract
Purpose :
To assess which factors are correlated with increased number of citations and publications
Methods :
Journals were ranked by impact factor on Scimago to identify the 50 most prolific journals in ophthalmology. The Scopus database was then scraped using Python 2.7 to provide authorship and citation information for over 115,000 articles and 165,000 unique authors.
Authors were then ranked by total number of citations over this time period, and corresponding demographic data for the top 100 researchers were manually coded by searching online for the CVs. Researchers with missing information were sent emails requesting more data. We coded as "top tier" the top 25 programs in US News and World Report for undergraduate and medical school research as well as the top 25 programs as ranked on Doximity by reputation. For statistical analysis a simple regression model (SPSS) was performed by estimating the total number of citations each researcher would have if their career was the same number of years as their peers. We also ran a growth curve analysis to look for differences in career trajectories.
Results :
Of the top 100 researchers, most of them worked in the USA (55), followed by 11 in Germany and 9 in Japan. Only 15 researchers were female, 21 had posted “chairman” on their CV. Our regression analysis failed to show significantly higher citations for
researchers who had graduated from a top tier undergraduate, medical, or residency program and those who had a PhD or MPH. Foreign researchers did had similar results as US researchers. Researchers who had graduated from a MD program (p<.034), had served as a chairman (p<.02), or were non-clinicians(define this) (p<.014) had more citations. The growth curve analysis showed no difference in trajectory for men vs women, however researchers who had completed a fellowship or worked in private practice progressed more slowly than those in academics (p<.001).
Conclusions :
Our results suggest that academic pedigree may not influence productivity in research as much as expected. Researchers within an academic institution and those who served as a chairman were cited more often.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.