A study of the structure of specialties in medicine, dentistry and pharmacology

Abstract

In order to clarify the structure of the specialties of medicine in a broad sense, this study was conducted through counting “Se” items in “Directory of University Professors and Researchers in Japan 1984”. The findings are arranged as follows. 1) As a measure showing the compound of specialty, “hybridity” is defined by the rate of the number of the researchers who minor in the specialty (i.e. the rate of “Se” items) and its varieties, and then represented graphically. 2) By analogy with citation analysis, the relation among specialties is diagramed by 2 step mapping method.As a result, the specialties of medicine in a broad sense can be divided into following three groups; high-hybridity group mainly composed of the specialties of basic medicine from immunology down mid-hybridity group composed of the specialties of internal medicine, surgery, basic dentistry and pharmacology, and low-hybridity group composed of the specialties of other clinical medicine and clinical dentistry. Furthermore one-way or two-way allows and the strength of the links in 2 step map indicate to which and in what matter a certain specialty is related.In spite of some methodological restrictions, these results will give us a lot of knowledge on elucidating the structure of specialties of medicine.