David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA.
World Neurosurg. 2022 Aug;164:e525-e529. doi: 10.1016/j.wneu.2022.05.003. Epub 2022 May 7.
The National Institutes of Health has developed a new metric, the Relative Citation Ratio (RCR), to assess the impact of research articles and compare academic productivity across different fields. Global surgery, obstetrics, trauma, and anesthesia (SOTA) are young and increasingly popular fields attracting researchers and funding. This study analyzed the RCR of global neurosurgery; compared it with other global SOTA specialties; and discussed the implications for researchers, academic institutions, and aspiring global neurosurgeons.
Metadata were downloaded from the National Institutes of Health RCR website for 12 established global surgery specialties, including global neurosurgery. The authors performed descriptive and bivariable inferential analyses to evaluate differences in the number of total publications, median number of citations per year, and median RCR for each specialty for which data were available.
Global pediatric surgery had the highest median citations per year (2.00, interquartile range: 0.63-3.50; P = 0.048) and median relative citation ratio (1.36, interquartile range: 0.33-1.95; P = 0.693). In comparison, global neurosurgery articles had 0.20 median citations per year (IQR: 0-1.5) and 0.54 (IQR: 0.12-1.30) median relative citations. The median expected citations per year for all SOTA articles was 1.77.
We observed strong development of global neurosurgery and SOTA research. Overall, the use of the RCR will facilitate standardized interfield and intrafield academic productivity comparisons. Based on the results presented in this study, global neurosurgery is a promising career route for young and aspiring academic neurosurgeons.
美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）开发了一种新的指标——相对引文比值（RCR），用于评估研究文章的影响力，并比较不同领域的学术产出。全球外科、妇产科、创伤和麻醉（SOTA）是年轻且日益受欢迎的领域，吸引着研究人员和资金。本研究分析了全球神经外科的 RCR；将其与其他全球 SOTA 专业进行比较；并讨论了对研究人员、学术机构和有抱负的全球神经外科医生的影响。
从 NIH RCR 网站下载了 12 个已确立的全球外科专业（包括全球神经外科）的元数据。作者进行了描述性和双变量推断分析，以评估每个专业的总出版物数量、每年的中位数引文数和中位数 RCR 的差异。
全球儿科外科的每年中位数引文数最高（2.00，四分位距：0.63-3.50；P=0.048）和中位数相对引文比（1.36，四分位距：0.33-1.95；P=0.693）。相比之下，全球神经外科文章每年的中位数引文数为 0.20（IQR：0-1.5）和中位数相对引文数为 0.54（IQR：0.12-1.30）。所有 SOTA 文章的预期每年中位数引文数为 1.77。
我们观察到全球神经外科和 SOTA 研究的强劲发展。总体而言，RCR 的使用将促进标准化的领域间和领域内学术产出比较。基于本研究中的结果，全球神经外科是年轻且有抱负的学术神经外科医生的一个有前途的职业途径。
