Evaluating the research productivity of academic dermatologists based on the NIH-supported relative citation ratio

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently developed an article-level metric called the relative citation ratio (RCR). It improves upon prior metrics such as the h-index in that it is field-normalized, allowing for more accurate comparisons of author productivity between fields. The RCR is also a more accurate metric for evaluating early-career stage investigators. We sought to provide benchmark RCR data of academic dermatologists and examine how factors such as gender, degrees, and academic rank impact RCR scores. Academic dermatologists were indexed using the NIH iCite database. Gender, additional degrees, academic rank, total number of publications, mean RCR, and weighted RCR were collected for each dermatologist. Mean and weighted RCR scores were compared by gender, degrees, and academic rank, with P values based on multiple linear regression. 1899 dermatology faculty members were included in the analysis. Academic dermatologists had a median mean RCR of 1.12 (interquartile range/IQR 0.65-1.73) and a median weighted RCR of 18.89 (IQR 4.67-62.18). Full professorship as well as Doctor of Philosophy acquisition were associated with an increase in mean and weighted RCR scores. Male gender was associated with an increase in weighted RCR scores. Interestingly, male and female academic dermatologists along with assistant and associate professors had similar mean RCR scores. Limitations of the study include the inability to differentiate dermatologists with the same name. The iCite website also only includes PubMed-listed articles from 1995 to 2021. Overall, academic dermatologists have a median mean RCR value greater than the NIH benchmark value of 1.00, suggesting that their publications are more impactful compared to those published by the general scientific community. The benchmark data from this study may prove useful for self-evaluation and also grant, hiring, and promotional decisions.