Research Productivity of Sports Medicine Fellowship Faculty

BACKGROUND Research productivity is considered an important factor in academic advancement in sports medicine. No study to date has evaluated academic productivity and correlates of academic rank for sports medicine fellowship faculty. PURPOSE To describe the academic productivity of American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) fellowship program faculty and to determine the association between academic productivity, fellowship characteristics, and academic rank. STUDY DESIGN Descriptive epidemiology study. METHODS Characteristics of orthopaedic sports medicine fellowship programs were obtained from the AOSSM and program websites. Metrics of academic productivity (Hirsch index [h index], I-10 index, publications, citations, and number of publications in several journals) were obtained from Scopus. Statistical analyses were conducted to determine whether academic productivity differs with fellowship attributes and academic rank. RESULTS A total of 90 AOSSM sports medicine fellowship programs with 610 associated faculty members were identified. Faculty were predominantly male (94%), at academic medical centers (74%), members of AOSSM (71%), and sports medicine-fellowship trained (84%). Faculty had a median of 18 (range, 0-684) publications overall, including a median of 3 (range, 0-161) publications since 2012. All measures of academic productivity were significantly higher among faculty employed at academic medical centers compared with those not employed at academic centers (P < .05 in all cases). On multivariate ordinal regression analysis, the best correlates of higher academic rank were higher cumulative h index (1.22; P < .001) and longer time in practice since fellowship (1.14; P < .001), which predicted 63.8% of the variance in academic rank. Fellowships with a larger number of fellows had more publications and citations per faculty member, higher faculty cumulative h index, and more publications in the American Journal of Sports Medicine and Arthroscopy per faculty member (P < .017). Regional differences were present, with the Northeast fellowship faculty the most productive, followed by the Midwest. CONCLUSION Higher cumulative h index and more years in practice were the best correlates of higher academic rank among AOSSM sports medicine fellowship faculty. Research productivity was higher among faculty employed at academic centers in the Northeast and Midwest regions and at programs with a larger number of fellows.