The Hirsch or h-index has been utilized as a metric to help characterize and quantify research achievement and output and is defined as the h number of papers with > h citations each.1 For example, an h-index of 10 means that an individual has at least 10 papers, each of which has been cited at least 10 times. This tool helps to remove statistical outliers, such as in an individual who has one paper with 100 citations, but three others with only three citations each (h-index = 3).
Within urology, little data is available on productivity metrics, making it challenging for younger urologists new to academia to assess their research contributions and output. Benway et al. previously looked at this question from a program’s perspective and found a strong association between h-index and academic standing after performing a single-day web search of the top 20 academic urology programs as defined by the U.S. News and World Report 2008 Rankings.2 However, we sought to expand the investigation by examining all academic urology programs with associated residency programs in the United States and Canada, thereby providing the first comprehensive assessment of these academic urology programs and individual physicians.
Using the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) and individual program websites, we identified all 2214 academic urology faculty (2015 in the USA, 199 in Canada) and calculated the median and mean h-index for this cohort to be 11 and 16.1 respectively.
After performing statistical analyses, our study’s results confirmed the conclusions drawn previously by Benway et al.,2 but on a larger scale, demonstrating a strong association between academic rank and higher h-index. As expected, we found that once the rank of associate and then full professor was reached, urologists were more likely to have higher h-indices compared to assistant professors and clinical instructors.
Beyond academic rank, we found fellowship training to be an important predictor of academic output, with fellowship-trained urologists being over three times more likely to have an h-index higher than the median when compared to those without fellowship training.
Lastly, we found female gender to be independently associated with less than median h-index, reflecting wider gender disparities within academic medicine. Fewer women hold senior or leadership positions within urology, as well as other fields of medicine, despite existing studies demonstrating women's research output equaling or exceeding that of male colleagues at more senior levels. These findings suggest likely implicit gender biases within academic urology, demanding increased measures to further elucidate gender disparities within urology and to ultimately address them effectively.
Ultimately, our study provides key benchmarks for trainees considering careers in academic urology and for practicing urologists to gauge their productivity in relation to their peers. Importantly, our data is not meant to serve as a criterion for career advancement and promotion, as a urologist’s contributions within academia cannot be distilled down to a single metric specifically focused on research output. Furthermore, h-index does not effectively capture a urologist’s clinical acumen, surgical skills, or teaching abilities.
We look forward to a future investigation into this academic productivity landscape, particularly as it evolves with the utilization of social media, such as Twitter. As the important association between academic productivity and Twitter utilization and metrics has been previously studied within urology,3 it will be interesting to see how social media and other tools may help drive urologic academic productivity and advance the field.
Written by: Timothy Han, Thenappan Chandrasekar, MD, Department of Urology, Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia Pennsylvania
References:
- Hirsch, Jorge E. "An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output." Proceedings of the National academy of Sciences 102, no. 46 (2005): 16569-16572.
- Benway, Brian M., Poonam Kalidas, Jose M. Cabello, and Sam B. Bhayani. "Does citation analysis reveal association between h-index and academic rank in urology?." Urology 74, no. 1 (2009): 30-33.
- Chandrasekar, Thenappan, Hanan Goldberg, Zachary Klaassen, Christopher JD Wallis, Joon Yau Leong, Spencer Liem, Seth Teplitsky, Rodrigo Noorani, and Stacy Loeb. "Twitter and academic Urology in the United States and Canada: a comprehensive assessment of the Twitterverse in 2019." BJU international 125, no. 1 (2020): 173-181.