Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Dental Students Seek Academically Productive Mentors

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a strong statistical correlation exists between the involvement of trainee groups and the academic productivity of the senior author. A retrospective cohort study of publications in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery from 2002 to 2016 was designed and implemented. The primary predictor variables were the presence of a trainee (dental student or oral and maxillofacial surgery [OMS] resident), year of publication, and study design and topic. The outcome variable was the Hirsch index (h-index) of the senior author. Author affiliations were queried using ScienceDirect, and the Scopus database was used to identify the h-index of the senior author from each publication spanning the previous 15years. Descriptive statistics and t tests were performed to determine significance. Of the 6,398 articles published in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery from January 2002 to December 2016, 1,341 (21.0%) met the inclusion criteria. The mean h-index of senior authors of articles with trainees or OMS residents was not significantly different from the mean h-index of senior authors without trainees (P=.50) or OMS residents (P=.37), whereas the mean h-index of senior authors working with dental students was significantly greater than the h-index of those not working with dental students (P<.01). Dental student mentors had a mean h-index that was below the sample mean from 2002 to 2007 but rose above the sample mean from 2010 to 2016. Trainees were more likely to work with academically productive mentors in orthognathic surgery (P<.01), temporomandibular joint (P<.05), retrospective cohort (P<.05), and innovative technique (P<.05) studies but less likely in randomized controlled trials (P<.05). Dental students seek more academically productive mentors to a greater degree. More studies should be conducted to elucidate the attributes of the ideal mentor in academic OMS and to determine whether differences in mentorship exist between domestic and foreign OMS programs.