Tracking Scholarly Productivity in Academic Plastic Surgery: A Departmental Scholarly Index Analysis

Assessing departmental scholarly output remains challenging, as traditional bibliometric metrics incompletely capture academic productivity at the department level and are often poorly suited for year-on-year evaluation. The Departmental Scholarly Index (DSI) provides a framework for evaluating aggregate and publication-adjusted departmental academic output over short-term intervals. This study examined year-on-year changes in DSI within an academic plastic surgery department between academic years (AY) 2024 and 2025.

Peer-reviewed publications produced by the Department of Plastic Surgery at a tertiary academic center during AY 2024 and 2025 were retrieved from PubMed. Aggregate DSI was calculated as the sum of journal impact factors across departmental publications following outlier handling, with publication-adjusted DSI defined as aggregate DSI divided by total publications. Year-on-year changes were quantified using absolute and relative percentage differences.

A total of 57 in AY 2024 and 138 peer-reviewed articles in AY 2025 were included. Aggregate DSI increased from 142.9 to 298.2, representing a 109% year-on-year increase, with increases in basic science research (19.3 to 45.0), clinical research (83.6 to 162.6), and reviews or commentaries (40.0 to 90.6). In contrast, overall publication-adjusted DSI decreased from 2.51 in AY 2024 to 2.16 in AY 2025, with declines observed in basic science research (6.43 to 2.50) and reviews or commentaries (3.08 to 2.27), while clinical research remained relatively stable (2.04 to 2.03).

Utilization of the DSI revealed exponential year-on-year growth in overall departmental academic output. The DSI framework offers a practical approach for longitudinal assessment and benchmarking of departmental academic productivity.