An analysis of surgical literature trends over four decades

Even as early as 1990, evidence shows no significant increase in the quantity of high impact studies in major surgical journals.2 Furthermore, dedicated training during residency in high quality research design, implementation and basis science investigations are deficient.3,4 One study found that 75% of senior faculty who performed research did so in basic science, compared to 60% of junior faculty and only 53% of trainees.5 This may in part be secondary to surgical funding. [...]one analysis investigating a ten-year trend in surgical publications found an increase in education based research from 1988 to 1998.8 A key piece to surgical education involves scholarly activities involving students, which has similarly increased as shown by the increase in student author publications.9 Furthermore, the utilization of student authors does not compromise the career advancement of young surgeon scientists nor their H-indices,9 and should be encouraged. The changes seen over the last four decades may, in part, be due to authors preferentially submitting manuscripts to their corresponding niche journals, as well as the competitive nature of some surgical fellowships requiring a robust research experience. [...]high impact journal publications from surgeon scientists appear to be more likely if these investigators have received specific research grant funding,10 lending to the notion that competitiveness breeds success.