Abstract
Background Despite major achievements, such as the development of hip prostheses, scientific
productivity in orthopaedics and trauma surgery has hardly been investigated. Our
study’s aim therefore was to analyse the correlation between the leading physicians’
h-index and their academic rang, in order to determine whether this objective measure
of scientific accomplishments correlates with clinical position.
Methods All physicians in leading positions at university hospitals’ orthopaedics or trauma
surgery departments in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland were included. Year of habilitation,
number of publications and citations as well as h-index were collected from September
to November 2020.
Results A total of 844 leading physicians at 46 university hospitals were included. Professors
had the highest number of total publications (117.4 ± 124.8, p < 0.001) and highest
h-index (20.1 ± 10.1, p < 0.001). We found significant differences in the total number
of publications (p = 0.001), publications in the last three years (p < 0.001), and
h-index (p < 0.001) between the three investigated nations, with all parameters being
highest in Switzerland.
Conclusion Our study shows that increasing scientific productivity is correlated with academic
success. The country-specific differences indicate significant differences in the
value of scientific activity in daily clinical routine.
Keywords
research - orthopaedics - orthopaedic surgeons - efficiency
