Scholarly Research Output and Trends in Medical Education from the Arab Region (2005-2024): A Bibliometric Analysis

Educational Curriculum, Assessment, Research and Outcomes: Past, Present and Future Directions

Communication skills are widely recognized as a core competency in medical education and clinical care, as they impact professional effectiveness, patient experience, and health outcomes. Over the past two decades, research in this area has expanded rapidly, creating the need for a comprehensive mapping of the field. To provide a global bibliometric analysis of research on communication skills in medical education and clinical practice published between 2000 and 2025, a systematic bibliometric search of PubMed (MEDLINE) and the Web of Science Core Collection was conducted for the period January 2000 to mid-2025. After deduplication and screening, 14,829 publications were included. Bibliometric indicators were analyzed using the Bibliometrix package in R and VOSviewer to evaluate publication trends, authorship patterns, journal impact, keyword co-occurrence, thematic evolution, and international collaboration networks. Annual publication output increased approximately 15-fold, from 86 publications in 2000 to 1,344 in 2025. Research was concentrated in a limited number of high-impact journals, led by Patient Education and Counseling, BMC Medical Education, Medical Teacher, and Medical Education. The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Canada, and Australia emerged as dominant contributors, with increasing international collaboration over time. Keyword and thematic analyses identified four major clusters: clinician-patient communication and outcomes, medical education and assessment, communication in sensitive and high-stakes clinical contexts, and emerging digital and technology-mediated communication modalities. Research on communication skills has evolved into a mature, interdisciplinary, and globally distributed field. The findings demonstrate strong curricular integration, increasing methodological sophistication, and growing attention to digital transformation while also highlighting persistent geographic and contextual gaps that warrant further research and educational innovation.

Problem-based learning (PBL) constructs a curriculum that merges theory and practice by employing clinical scenarios or real-world problems. Originally designed for the pre-clinical phase of undergraduate medicine, PBL has since been integrated into diverse aspects of medical education. Therefore, this study aims to map the global scientific landscape related to PBL in medical education in the last ten years. We combined bibliometrics and network analysis to analyze the metadata of related research articles published between 2013 and 2022 and indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. Our results show an annual publication rate of 9.42%. The two main journals disseminating research on this subject are BMC Medical Education and Medical Teacher. Education & Educational Research and Health Care Sciences & Services are the two most frequent research areas, and also the two most central nodes of the related network. The USA and China are the most publishing countries, while the Netherlands and Canada are the most collaborative. The Maastricht University holds the position of most publishing and collaborative research organization. The University of California ranks second in publications, while the University of Toronto is the second most central research organization. Our study provides an overview of the last ten years of publications related to PBL and medical education, and we hope it can be of interest to educators, researchers, and students involved with this subject. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-024-02003-1.

Medical and dental education share the common goal of preparing clinically competent and socially responsible health professionals. Despite this shared goal, the two disciplines have evolved as distinct academic fields, with limited empirical comparisons between them. Understanding their commonalities and differences can foster mutual development and cross-disciplinary collaboration. This study aims to compare research priorities in medical and dental education by analyzing author keywords from representative journals in each field. A bibliometric analysis was conducted using author keywords from two medical education journals (Advances in Health Sciences Education and BMC Medical Education) and two dental education journals (European Journal of Dental Education and Journal of Dental Education) over a 10-year period (2015-2024). Data were retrieved from the Web of Science database, including only original research articles and review articles. Frequency analysis of the top 10 author keywords was performed in 2-year intervals, and bump charts were created to visualize temporal ranking changes. In addition, co-occurrence network maps were constructed using all keywords appearing 10 or more times over the study period. Data processing and visualization were conducted using VOSviewer and Tableau software. A total of 9391 articles were analyzed, comprising 6806 articles from medical education journals and 2585 articles from dental education journals. Both fields consistently emphasized "students," "assessment," and "curriculum" as core research topics. However, medical education placed greater emphasis on "postgraduate medical education" and student mental health (e.g., empathy, resilience, and depression), whereas dental education focused more on "educational technology" and clinical skills development (e.g., simulation, virtual reality, and psychomotor skills). The keyword "covid-19" emerged prominently in both fields from 2019 to 2020 onward, reflecting the pandemic's transformative impact on education. "Interprofessional education" appeared as a shared emerging theme, suggesting growing recognition of collaborative practice needs. This study identifies both foundational commonalities and discipline-specific innovations in medical and dental education research over the past decade. These findings suggest that shared interests and distinctive priorities can lead to meaningful opportunities for collaborative educational development and joint research efforts across health professions education.

BackgroundChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence–based chatbot developed by OpenAI. Since its release in the second half of 2022, it has been widely applied across various fields. In particular, the application of ChatGPT in medical education has become a significant trend. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the research developments and trends regarding ChatGPT in medical education, we conducted an extensive review and analysis of the current state of research in this field.ObjectiveThis study used bibliometric and visualization analysis to explore the current state of research and development trends regarding ChatGPT in medical education.MethodsA bibliometric analysis of 407 articles on ChatGPT in medical education published between March 2023 and June 2025 was conducted using CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Bibliometrix (RTool of RStudio). Visualization of countries, institutions, journals, authors, keywords, and references was also conducted.ResultsThis bibliometric analysis included a total of 407 studies. Research in this field began in 2023, showing a notable surge in annual publications until June 2025. The United States, China, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, and Canada produced the most publications. Networks of collaboration also formed among institutions. The University of California system was a core research institution, with 3.4% (14/407) of the publications and 0.17 betweenness centrality. BMC Medical Education, Medical Teacher, and the Journal of Medical Internet Research were all among the top 10 journals in terms of both publication volume and citation frequency. The most prolific author was Yavuz Selim Kiyak, who has established a stable collaboration network with Isil Irem Budakoglu and Ozlem Coskun. Author collaboration in this field is usually limited, with most academic research conducted by independent teams and little communication between teams. The most frequent keywords were “AI,” “ChatGPT,” and “medical education.” Keyword analysis further revealed “educational assessment,” “exam,” and “clinical practice” as current research hot spots. The most cited paper was “Performance of ChatGPT on USMLE: Potential for AI-Assisted Medical Education Using Large Language Models,” and the paper with the strongest citation burst was “Are ChatGPT’s Knowledge and Interpretation Ability Comparable to Those of Medical Students in Korea for Taking a Parasitology Examination?: A Descriptive Study.” Both papers focus on evaluating ChatGPT’s performance in medical exams.ConclusionsThis study reveals the significant potential of ChatGPT in medical education. As the technology improves, its applications will expand into more fields. To promote the diversification and effectiveness of ChatGPT in medical education, future research should strengthen interregional collaboration and enhance research quality. These findings provide valuable insights for researchers to identify research perspectives and guide future research directions.

Gender bias has been observed in the authorship and editorship of academic literature in varied medical specialties. This is important as peer-reviewed publications, and participation on editorial boards, are closely related to academic productivity and advancement. The aim of this paper was to examine whether gender-based disparities in authorship and editorship exist in leading medical education journals. A retrospective bibliometric review was conducted of articles published at eight different time-points across a 49-year time period (specifically: 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2019) in four leading medical education journals (Academic Medicine, BMC Medical Education, Medical Education and Medical Teacher). First and last (as a proxy for senior) author gender was determined for each article, along with the gender of the 2019 editorial board members of each journal. Chi-square tests for trend were conducted to examine variations in author gender distributions over time, and binomial tests of proportions were conducted to examine gender distributions in authorship and editorship in 2019. Logistic regression analyses were carried out to determine factors that predicted the odds of authorship by women. A total of 5749 articles were included. A significant trend of increased women as first and last authors was observed across all journals. The percentage of women first authors increased from 6.6% in 1970 to 53.7% in 2019 (P<.001), and women last authors increased from 9.5% in 1970 to 46% in 2019 (P<.001). Overall, the distributions of women first authors, last authors and editorial board members in 2019 indicated greater gender parity than many other fields of medicine. Positive progress towards gender parity has been made in medical education scholarship. However, future research and efforts are needed to ensure the continued participation, and highlighting, of women in medical education scholarship and to address other factors which may hinder academic advancement for women in this field.

Medical education is on today’s agenda. What students learn, how they learn, where they learn and how the learning is best organised and assessed are questions being addressed, not only by medical education enthusiasts or educational researchers but more generally by healthcare professionals, the public and politicians. The increased interest and participation in local, national and international meetings on medical education, such as the Conference organised by the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE), which now attracts 3000 participants, is evidence of this growing interest in the field. An expanding number of texts on the subject such as ‘A Practical Guide for Medical Teachers’ which is now in its fourth edition are now available. The number of papers submitted for publication on the subject is also expanding. Each week in the Medical Teacher office, almost 25 new manuscripts are received for consideration. In Saudi Arabia, there has been a corresponding increase in interest in medical education and a rapid expansion in the number of medical schools, with the number doubling over the past five years to 31 (Bin Abdulrahman 2011). The Saudi Deans Committee and the Saudi Society for Medical Education have been active in the field of medical education, and among their contributions has been the development and publication of a learning outcome framework – ‘Saudi Meds’ (Zaini et al. 2011). Medical education departments are a feature of many medical schools in the Kingdom and these have been a focus for developments in the field. In this supplement to Medical Teacher, some of the interesting on-going work in medical education is summarised. The 13 papers published were selected from almost 40 papers submitted, as a result of a review process involving regional and international referees, with the aim of providing an overview of some of the work in medical education currently underway in the Kingdom. In medical education, there has been a move from a teacher-centred to a student-centred model (Harden et al. 1984) with recognition that the importance of the student is paramount. It is therefore significant that seven of the papers included in this supplement address issues specifically relating to the student. The move to ‘self-directed learning’ has been more appropriately referred to as ‘directed self-learning’ (Harden & Laidlaw 2012), with the teacher’s role as one of the facilitator of the learning through the provision of guidance for students as to what they should learn and the options available to support this. Al-hazimi (2012; this supplement), based on his experience with a cardiovascular module at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, describes how a study guide can be used to support student learning. Much has been written about students’ engagement with PBL. Alghasham (2012; this supplement) from Al-Qassim College of Medicine offers an interesting perspective. He reports how students with different learning styles respond in different ways to PBL. This is an interesting area for further exploration in the pursuit of creating learning opportunities more personalised and tailored to the needs of the individual student. Another paper by Alamro and Schofield (2012; this supplement) from the same Medical School describes how traditional PBL can be supported with online discussion forums. The learning environment to which the student is exposed

Inconvenient truths about effective clinical teaching

Introduction:Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered educational methodology that has been shown to promote clinical skills, critical thinking, and self-directed learning in medical education. This study aims to analyze the global scientific output on PBL in medical education through a bibliometric approach.Methods:This is a descriptive and nonexperimental study with a bibliometric analysis of the articles published between 2019 and 2025 in the Scopus database. A search strategy using MeSH terms related to PBL and medical education was applied, retrieving 608 documents. Original research articles focused on PBL in medical schools were included. VOSviewer, SciVal, and Bibliometrix in RStudio were used for the analysis.Results:Abdalla Mohamed Elhassan was identified as the most productive author, while Sibbald Matt Gary stood out for his highest relative impact. Maastricht University and Harvard University led in institutional productivity. The most relevant journals were BMC Medical Education and Medical Science Educator. National collaboration was predominant (40.5%), although international collaboration showed a higher weighted impact. Thematic clusters were identified, relating to students, curriculum, clinical competencies, and COVID-19. Journals ranked in Q1–Q2 showed sustained growth in publications.Conclusion:PBL is an active and consolidating field in the medical literature, with a strong institutional and editorial concentration. The findings highlight a need for greater global collaboration and geographical diversification in the scientific output.

There has been emerging evidence supporting the mini-clinical evaluation exercise (mini-CEX) in various clinical specialties and settings. However, we need more clarity regarding theapplicability of mini-CEX as an optimal assessment tool. Consequently, it has not been implemented on a wider scale, and several clinical specialties are yet to explore the benefits of mini-CEX. Therefore, we conducted a bibliometric analysis to investigate the publication trends of mini-CEX. We searched the Web of Science database for mini-CEX-related original and review articles. The search results were analyzed for year-wise contribution, citation trends, contributing journals, contributing institutions, countries, authors, distribution of original/review articles, retrospective/prospective/laboratory/other types of studies, specialties covered, nature of medical education (undergraduate vs. specialty trainees), and clinical settings involved in the studies (single/multiple). A total of 59 eligible articles (53 original and six review articles) were published between 1995 and 2022 in 35 different journals. The mean citations per year were 65.96 per year, and the mean citations per article per year were 2.34 citations per article per year. The articles published in BMC Medical Education and Medical Teacher were the highest in number. In total, 97 institutes contributed to the mini-CEX-related research, mostly from the University of Bern, Switzerland. There were 238 contributing authors, with Norcini JJ contributing the most number of articles. The remaining articles were 15 retrospective studies, one developmental study, six review articles, and three laboratory-based studies. The 50 non-laboratory studies involved students/trainees in medical and allied fields. Medicine was the most frequently covered specialty. The participants were mostly specialty trainees, followed by undergraduate medical students. Multiple settings were used in 38% of the reviewed studies and single in 16%. The published articles have reduced impact and growth, as evidenced by low annual growth rates and citation trends. However, the available evidence was of reasonable quality considering the contribution from mostly prospective studies. Furthermore, it suggests considerable potential for further investigating the role of mini-CEX in clinical teaching.

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Background: There are numerous national efforts to determine and develop research priorities of medical education in Saudi Arabia. These priorities were first proposed in 2010 by “Dr Al-Khuli’s Chair for Developing Medical Education in Saudi Arabia”. The proposed priority domains were: curriculum, students, faculty, and quality assurance and accreditation.Aim: To investigate publications in medical education at the national and international levels in areas relating to these proposed priorities.Methods: Electronic search within PubMed database for papers relating to each domain of priority was conducted at national and international levels in the last three years, using the same keywords as the priority domains, but only confined to undergraduate medical education.Results: Out of 3145 articles retrieved when searching with keyword as broad as “undergraduate medical curriculum” only 81 articles worldwide and 3 articles from Saudi Arabia were dealing with curriculum related issues as a whole. Further search on the sub-domains “effective strategies to manage undergraduate curriculum” and “undergraduate medical education models”, resulted in the retrieval of few articles worldwide and none from Saudi Arabia. At the national level, there were 63 publications from Saudi Arabia that were either course (topic)-specific or could not be classified under the four domains specified by Dr Al-Khuli’s Chair.Conclusion: Research activities in medical education in Saudi Arabia in the last 3 years showed diversity and lack of focus in the research priorities. Efforts of academic and research centers should continue to monitor and encourage these activities toward achieving the recommended priorities.

Introduction:The field of medical education (ME) has grown substantially over the past decades, yet questions remain about its scope and boundaries. This study examines how research topics and institutional collaborations have evolved in ME from 2000 to 2019.Methods:Adopting a post-positivist stance and using bibliometric network analyses, we examined metadata from 31,338 publications across 22 core ME journals indexed in the Web of Science. We analyzed trends in institutional collaboration and the development of research themes. Extracted metadata included authors’ institutional affiliations and KeyWords Plus (n = 18,218). Bibliometric analyses were conducted using VOSviewer, a widely used tool for network mapping. We generated co-authorship networks to trace institutional collaboration and co-word networks to identify thematic clusters.Results:Co-authorship networks revealed increasing collaboration, with U.S. institutions remaining central and Canadian and Dutch institutions gaining prominence. Co-word analyses identified three stable clusters—teaching and learning, quantitative, and psychosocial—with teaching and learning dominant across all periods and the quantitative cluster expanding in recent years.Discussion:Findings show the consolidation of teaching and learning as the foundation of ME, alongside diversification through quantitative and psychosocial themes. Growing collaborations suggest the field’s maturation, though geographic imbalances persist. Limitations include reliance on a restricted set of Web of Science journals, which overrepresent English-language and highly cited publications, and the use of KeyWords Plus as a proxy for themes. This study offers an evidence-based mapping of ME’s evolution and provides a framework for future research on the interdisciplinary and global dynamics of the field.

Context Bibliometric analysis is a method for analyzing the existing literature of a specific research area. Because it provides information about current research trends, the analysis can highlight attributes of frequently cited articles and identify areas for future research. To our knowledge, no such investigation has been conducted for osteopathic medical education. Objective To conduct a bibliometric analysis of the 100 top-cited articles in osteopathic medical education to identify characteristics of the articles and to explore the thematic structure and connections among common topics. Methods In October 2020, the Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection was searched for osteopathic medical education articles authored by faculty associated with U.S. colleges of osteopathic medicine (COMs). Search results included articles from 1975 to the present, based on the available dates of the indexes. Only articles in English were included in the search. Articles were identified using a three-stage search strategy and group consensus. Once identified, the following bibliometric characteristics were collected: journal name, journal impact factor, year of publication, article title, medical education research topic, authors, number of citations, and the authors’ COM affiliation. Articles were then hand searched in several non-indexed osteopathic-related journals, collecting the same data and using Google Scholar for the number of citations. The 100 top-cited articles were extracted and included in our analysis. Bibliometric metrics were calculated and summarized to assess performance and impact. Science mapping by topics was conducted to assess article contents. Specifically, network analysis and clustering were used to explore the structure and relationship of topics covered in the articles. Results Our WOS search identified 193,381 records. The highest 50,000 top-cited results were downloaded for screening, and an additional 89 records were identified from journal website searches. After initial screening and removal of duplicates, the title and abstract of 134 records were independently screened by each team member. Of those, 28 were excluded because they were not a U.S. study, authored by a non-COM author, or outside our study scope; six did not meet our exclusion criteria. The top-cited article was a systematic review that was cited 107 times. The journal with the most top-cited articles (28) was Academic Medicine, but BMC Medical Education had the highest number of citations per article (37.8). The Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine tied for the highest number (15) of top-cited articles, but Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine had the highest number of citations per article (39.8). Network analysis and clustering identified four thematic groupings: humanistic and whole-person care; clinical science and training; educational technology; and health-care systems. The topics within each cluster were cohesive, yet clusters also communicated with each other. Conclusion Results of the current study provided valuable information about the most frequent osteopathic medical education topics published by authors affiliated with COMs and suggested that journal impact factor was not a direct contributor to number of citations per article. The cluster analysis also provided insight about interconnected topics in osteopathic medical education. Results from this bibliometric analysis may be useful to inform future research, encourage collaboration, and provide guidance for advancing osteopathic medical education research in the United States.

This profile of Stephen Abrahamson, Ph.D., Sc.D., is the first of six profiles to appear as part of the Exemplar project focused of six retired medical educators who transformed the field of medical education. The exemplars, all graduate degree recipients in education were interviewed by six senior present-day medical educators using a common protocol designed to elicit career chronology and the significant contributions of educationists to medical education of Dr. Abrahamson's profile was based on an in-depth two-day interview, examination of a comprehensive list of his publications, the history of the Society of the Directors of Research in Medical Education, and unsolicited conversations with several of his colleagues. Dr. Abrahamson began his career teaching high school, later receiving a masters and doctorate degrees, in preparation for a career as a teacher-educator. Through collaboration with Dr. George Miller, Dr. Abrahamson began his career as an educationist in medicine - one who studies the education process and prepares others to become teachers - by teaching medical school faculty about the science of education. Dr. Abrahamson's career was devoted to applying his evidence-based education approach to the newly emerging profession of medical education. An examination of his career shows that he made four vital contributions to medical education - defining the educationist role, serving as a teaching/mentor/network builder/friend to medical educators, curriculum change agent and innovator at USC, and demonstrating and articulating the value of offices of medical education and research in medical education. More broadly, Dr. Abrahamson identified three major contributions made by educationists to the field of medical education: the application of education principles to instructional/assessment innovations (e.g., programmed patients), an evidence-based approach to assessing education, and faculty development/teacher training. Based on his half-century of experience in medical education, Dr. Abrahamson outlined seven lessons for success as an educationist in medicine.