Abstract 17052: Cardiothoracic Surgeons With a PhD Degree Exhibit Greater Research Productivity

Abstract

Introduction: A PhD degree can offer significant research experience for academic surgeons. Here, we evaluated the impact of a PhD on research productivity and career advancement in cardiothoracic (CT) surgeons. Methods: All CT surgeons practicing at an accredited United States CT surgery training program in 2018 who earned a PhD or completed a research fellowship during training (RF) were included (n=583). To ensure a more consistent training pathway, we performed a sub-analysis of U.S. medical school graduates (n=456). Surgeon-specific data were obtained from publicly available sources (eg. institutional webpages, Scopus). Results: 92 (15.8%) surgeons obtained a PhD while 491 (84.2%) did not but did a RF (Table 1A). Importantly, attending start year was similar (2005 vs 2005, p=0.5202). As of 2018, PhD surgeons published greater first-author (17.0 vs 12.0, p=0.0079), last-author (12.0 vs 6.0, p=0.0462), and total papers (68.5 vs 52.0, p=0.0148), as well as total papers per year as an attending (4.6 vs 3.0, p=0.0148). However, PhD surgeons took a similar amount of time as non-PhD surgeons who did a RF to become a full professor from the start of their first job (12.0 vs 11.0, p=0.6620). No difference was observed in current academic rank neither (p=0.8047). For U.S. medical school graduates, there were 40 PhD surgeons and 416 non-PhD surgeons who did a RF (Table 1B). Both groups published a similar number of first-author (13.0 vs 13.0, p=0.5379), last-author (12.5 vs 6.0, p=0.0981), total papers (64.5 vs 54.0, p=0.3453), and total papers per year as an attending (3.2 vs 3.0, p=0.7546). Years to full professor were also similar between these two groups (12.0 vs 11.0, p=0.6007) as was current academic rank (p=0.3114). Conclusions: A PhD degree is not associated with faster career advancement but may be associated with enhanced research productivity for some surgeons due to the impact of their medical school training environment.