Scientific Production by Cardiologists and Scientific Societies of Cardiology: Differences and Similarities between Argentina and Regional and Central Countries

Abstract

The present study analyzes the scientific production by cardiologists in general and by Societies of Cardiology in particular in Argentina and other regions of the world, including Latin America, USA, Europe, Asia, Oceania and South Africa. We used the h-index created by Professor Jorge E. Hirsch, an Argentinean physicist who is currently working in the University of California, USA. Despite its limitations, the h-index is nowadays used in most of the universities of the developed countries to measure the scientific quality of an investigator, a group of investigators or a scientific society. This index considers all the publications performed by the author and the amount of citation the work has received. The limitations of this index are discussed in this paper. We have tried to quantify the scientific production in cardiology measured by the h-index in different countries. The h-index of the presidents of the scientific societies of cardiology in the last 20 years is also analyzed. The possible explanations for these findings are discussed. Despite its shortcomings, the h-index is used in most of the universities in the USA and Europe for the award of tenure, promotion and advancement in the career of an investigator, which I consider of undoubted value at the moment of measuring scientific and academic production.