Academic productivity and industry trends of fellowship-trained U.S. academic rhinologists.

Background: Academic productivity is believed to be correlated with years of experience and departmental rank, yet there is a paucity of granular academic data between rhinology faculty regarding departmental rank and industry engagement, and how these relate to experience.

Objective: To examine the interrelationships between experience, department rank and reputation, funding, industry engagement, and academic output of rhinology faculty.

Methods: Demographics, academic metrics (publications, citations, h-index, National Institutes of Health [NIH] funding), program rankings, and industry compensation for academic U.S. rhinologists through June 2022 were collected and compared between academic rank and years of experience.

Results: A cohort of 278 rhinologists were included. Full professors had greater academic metrics (all p < 0.001) and industry compensation (all p < 0.05) than associate professors, assistant professors, and private practice rhinologists. Full professors were also more likely to receive NIH funding than other groups (p < 0.001). Years of experience and industry compensation positively correlated with each other and with academic metrics (all p < 0.001) with significant jumps between the 5th-9th and 10th-14th years of practice (p < 0.001). However, early career (≤8 years) rhinologists published more articles per year than later career (>8 years) rhinologists (p < 0.001). Rhinologists at Doximity top 10 and 25 residency programs by reputation and research output and top 50 U.S. News and World Report departments had significantly greater academic metrics and NIH funding compared to those who were not (p < 0.001). Top 10 and 25 reputations was associated with increased industry compensation (p = 0.024).

Conclusions: Although early career rhinologists published more frequently, ascending professorial rank, years of experience, and affiliation with top-ranked departments were associated with total academic productivity. Industry engagement was linked to reputation and years of experience.