Assessment of Orthopedic Educational Research in 2015 Publications

Abstract

Due to orthopedic surgery's unique educational model, recent changes within graduate medical education have the potential to impact the methods and outcomes of specialty training significantly. Using Mind the Gap: Representation of Medical Education in Cardiology-Related Articles and Journals (Allred et al., 2016) as a framework, this study investigates educational research within the field of orthopedics. Two main objectives were evaluated: (1) quantitative analysis of the amount and type of orthopedic education-related research in orthopedic, general surgery, and medical education journals and (2) estimate the priority of orthopedic journals to publish education-focused articles. Using a composite citation-based 5-metric scoring system, a complete list of journals pertaining to orthopedics, nonorthopedic specific surgery journals, and general medical education journals was ranked. All publications during 2015 for the selected cohort of journals were then analyzed for orthopedic education-related publications. Aim and scope of the top 15 selected orthopedic journals (along with the mission statements of their associated societies) were evaluated with a word cloud generator to determine priority on education. Review of 7112 articles from the top 15 selected orthopedic journals yielded 37 publications with an educational focus. Evaluation of 15 general surgery or medical education journals, containing 4661 publications, generated an additional 28 positive articles. In total, 51 unique orthopedic education-related publications (0.43% of total evaluated articles) were identified from the 11,773 articles published in the selected 30 journals for 2015. The lack of emphasis on orthopedic educational research output is multifactorial, needing further evaluation to determine specific causes and methods of improvement. This article adequately sheds light on the need to increase support of educational research programs within the field of orthopedics.