Relative Citation Ratio Among Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgeons: Examining the Factors Associated With Higher Scores

Academic scholarship is often valued by clinicians, peers, and intuitions. Quantifying the effect of research publications is challenging. Various metrics have been used to assess this. This study aimed to examine the relatively new research metric, relative citation ratio (RCR), introduced by the National Institutes of Health, for pediatric orthopaedic surgeons to establish the benchmarking of research effect within the field and understand the distribution and basis for the use of this metric among pediatric orthopaedic surgeons.

The RCR indices were assessed for members of the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America using the iCite online web service. The mean RCR (mRCR, the yearly average RCR) and weighted RCR (wRCR, the cumulative RCR score) were assessed for each member. This information was used to perform univariate and two multivariate ordinary least squares regressions for the two metrics. Independent variables were physician sex, years since receiving national provider identifier, MD versus DO degree, whether the physician had a PhD, and geographic region of practice (Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, West, and Southwest).

A total of 770 pediatric orthopaedic physicians were identified. The median [interquartile range] wRCR was 15.6 [4.9 to 54.2], and median mRCR was 1.4 [1.0 to 1.9]. Multivariable squares regression for wRCR showed an independently increased wRCR associated with male sex (39.11), PhD (23.32), years since receiving national provider identifier (4.51), and northeast region (48.44). However, these trends were not notable for mRCR where only southeast region was notable.

Although each has its caveats, both mRCR and wRCR have a place in evaluating an author's publication history and other research metrics. Furthermore, it is important to know the overall research metrics within a field to allow for inter- and intraspecialty comparisons. Understanding RCR is helpful because it allows for new comparisons within and across fields and career lengths.