Impact of Training and Practice Environment on Academic Productivity of Early Career Academic Neurosurgeons

Abstract

Factors affecting academic productivity of neurosurgeons are increasingly being studied. In the current investigation, we retrospectively reviewed a cohort of early career neurosurgeons to determine if their medical education, residency training, or academic employer had the most influence on a young academician's productivity. We studied early career neurosurgeons who completed residency in U.S.-based neurosurgical training programs between 2010 and 2014. The ranking of an individual subject's medical school, residency, and current academic employer were analyzed for correlation with his or her current h-index. The neurosurgeons with the highest h-indexes are more likely to have attended elite medical schools, have trained in high-ranking residency programs, and work for prestigious university departments (P < 0.0001). Furthermore, we identified a positive correlation between the subjects' academic productivity and the ranking of all the institutions throughout their medical education, training, and current employment. The strongest correlation was with the rank of their residency program (ρ= 0.52). There is a correlation between the early career academic neurosurgeons' h-indexes and the ranking of all the institutions throughout their education, training, and current employment, but the strongest correlation was with the academic productivity of their residency program.