Fellowships Represent a Logical Target for Cultivating Research in Academic Anesthesiology

The need for greater emphasis on research contributions in academic anesthesiology has been widely recognized in recent years. Some propose increasing integration of research, including dedicated research time, into ACGME requirements for residency and fellowship training experiences. The h-index, an effective measure of research productivity that takes into account relevance and impact of an author's contributions on discourse within a field, was used to examine whether there are differences in research productivity between non-fellowship and fellowship-trained faculty in academic anesthesiology departments. This bibliometric was further used to examine differences in subspecialties, and other specialties of medicine.

Research productivity, as measured by the h-index, was examined using the Scopus database for 508 academic Anesthesiologists practicing in the various subspecialties.

There was no statistical difference in research productivity, as measured by the h-index, between non-fellowship and fellowship-trained academic anesthesiologists (2.98+-0.32 vs. 2.88+-0.31). Critical care anesthesiologists had the highest h-indices (5.78+-1.11), while regional anesthesia and pain medicine practitioners had the lowest values (1.18+-0.32). Unlike in anesthesiology, a sample of physicians from other specialties revealed a statistical difference in h-index between non-fellowship and fellowship-trained physicians.

Scholarly productivity, as measured by the h-index was similar for fellowship and non-fellowship trained anesthesiologists.