Who is Committed to Education? An Analysis of Surgical Education Research Publications

Objective: Advances in surgical training have led to the recent emergence of surgical education research. While the importance of surgical education research is well recognized, not all surgical journals are publishing these works. The objective of this study was to analyze the volume and types of surgical education publications in general surgery and surgical subspecialty journals.

Design: A PubMed search string was developed to identify surgical education publications in general surgery (GS, n = 10) and surgical subspecialty (SS, n = 16) journals from 2015 to 2019. Publications were catalogued into 7 categories: curriculum and/or teaching, trainee assessment, program evaluation, wellness and/or burnout, resident research, case outcomes with resident involvement, and other. Journals were also categorized by impact factor into 3 groups. Statistical analysis was performed using linear regression and Wilcoxon rank-sum to analyze differences in education publication number and percent between GS and SS journals, as well as between different impact factor groups.

Results: The median proportion of surgical education publications was 1.2% (IQR 0.3-2.8%) of total publications for journals queried. The highest proportion of surgical education publications by a journal was 13.9%. All other journals had median ≤ 5.5%. GS journals had a significantly higher median percent of surgical education publications than SS journals (2.9% [IQR 1.7-4.8%] vs 0.5% [IQR 0.0-1.4%] p < 0.01). Additionally, no significant differences were found for number of surgical education publications when journals were categorized by IF (p > 0.05).

Conclusions: Education research is an important component of the surgical literature, with similar publication rates among journals of different impact factors. Publication volume is higher among general surgery than surgical subspecialty journals. With the ever-changing paradigm of surgical training, a rigorous scientific approach is needed to ensure effective training of future surgeons. Subspecialty journals should promote surgical education research to further understand and develop training in their field.