Diminishing Basic Science Research Experience Among United States Cardiothoracic Surgery Trainees

Area of Science:

• Surgical Research
• Medical Education
• Scientific Publishing

Background:

• Growing concern exists regarding the attrition of surgeon-scientists.
• Understanding trends in trainee research is crucial to address the decline in basic science research (BSR).

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate trends in basic science research (BSR) publication among cardiothoracic (CT) surgery trainees over the past three decades.
• To determine if CT surgery trainees are publishing fewer BSR articles compared to previous cohorts.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of publication records from Scopus for CT surgery trainees who completed training between 1991 and 2020 in US institutions.
• Classification of articles as BSR based on National Institutes of Health iCite Translation module criteria.
• Statistical analysis using Fisher's exact test or Wilcoxon rank-sum test.

Main Results:

• The proportion of CT surgery trainees publishing a first-author BSR paper significantly decreased from 59.2% (1991-2000) to 38.9% (2011-2020).
• The number of first-author BSR papers per trainee also significantly decreased from 1.7 per decade to 0.8 per decade.
• The overall proportion of trainees publishing any first-author paper remained stable, indicating a specific decline in BSR.

Conclusions:

• Cardiothoracic surgery trainees are publishing fewer basic science research papers.
• Efforts are needed to increase trainee exposure to BSR and emphasize its importance for academic surgeons.