A Review of Academic Dermatologist Research Productivity Including Career Age Adjustments and Institutional Comparisons

The research productivity of academic dermatology faculty and institutions is frequently assessed by quantitative bibliometrics, for which there are few established benchmarks. The objective of this study was to quantify bibliometrics for dermatology faculty from high-performing academic institutions, measure productivity changes throughout a career, and analyze productivity changes over time. The authors obtained peer-reviewed articles from 1973 to 2023 using Scopus for 410 faculty dermatologists from the 10 highest-ranked United States institutions as determined by Doximity in 2023. This data was used to generate cumulative distribution functions for various bibliometric performance metrics as a function of both career age and among academic institutions. These metrics included authorships (\(\:\dot{A}\)), first or last authorships (\(\:\dot{FL}\)), monograph equivalents (\(\:\dot{ME}\)), h-index, and ha-index. The authors additionally explored bibliometric inflation from the period of 1991 to 2023. Publication rates increased substantially over the course of a dermatologist’s career and peaked after 15–25 years for \(\:\dot{FL}\) and \(\:\dot{ME}\). Median bibliometrics at career ages (1, 10, 20, 30) were \(\:\dot{A}\)=(1.0, 1.7, 3.4, 3.4) year^− 1, \(\:\dot{FL}\)=(0.4, 0.6, 1.1, 0.6) year^− 1, \(\:\dot{ME}\)=(0.3, 0.4, 0.6, 0.4) year^− 1, h-index=(0, 6, 16, 26), and ha-index=(0.5, 3.4, 7.9, 12.6). Between 1991 and 2023, the median number of authors per paper doubled and \(\:\dot{A}\) increased by 36%, while \(\:\dot{FL}\) and \(\:\dot{ME}\) were stable. Inter-institutional performance was comparable, including distributions of lower and higher-performing faculty. In conclusion, intercomparison of academic dermatologist bibliometric performance requires adjustments for career age and era. In the presented work, the authors provide tabulated data for percentile ranking of faculty. Research productivity, measured by \(\:\dot{FL}\) and \(\:\dot{ME}\), has not changed in over 30 years. Lastly, highly ranked institutions have similar distributions of lower and higher performers.