By far the greatest volume of publications indexed in worldwide bibliometric databases is in medical research.
According to data from Elsevier, about 11.4 million pieces of research in medicine were indexed in its Scopus database from 2014 to 2017, representing 16.3 per cent of all publications.
Within this wider subject area, most research is published in a Scopus category called “general medicine”, but the field with the second-biggest research volume is in surgery.
Below are the institutions and scholars that have been publishing the most highly cited work in surgery research between 2014 to 2017 compared with the world average.
Four other US universities also figure in the top 10, while the only other country with more than one representative is the Netherlands.
In terms of individual authors, American heart surgeon James K. Kirklin, endowed chair of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has published the most highly cited research. He was almost 16 times more likely to have published an article in the world’s top 1 per cent of cited research than average from 2014 to 2017.
Professor Kirklin, who is the son of another heart surgery pioneer, the late John W. Kirklin, has helped to make scientific advances in the fields of transplants and mechanical assistance for blood circulation after heart failure.
| Author | Affiliation | Scholarly output, 2014 to 2017 | Expected output index (EOI) |
| Kirklin, James K. | University of Alabama at Birmingham | 51 | 15.7 |
| Clavien, Pierre Alain | University of Zurich | 75 | 10.7 |
| Bassi, Claudio | University of Verona | 57 | 10.5 |
| Holcomb, John B.B. | University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston | 81 | 9.9 |
| Shahian, David M. | Harvard University | 51 | 9.8 |
| Badhwar, Vinay | University of Pittsburgh | 53 | 9.4 |
| Hackert, Thilo | University of Heidelberg | 58 | 8.6 |
| Lillemoe, Keith D. | Harvard University | 82 | 8.5 |
| Serra, Raffaele | University Magna Graecia | 65 | 7.7 |
| Yeo, Charles | Johns Hopkins University | 52 | 7.7 |
Source: Elsevier/SciVal.
Other surgeons in the top 10 include liver specialist Pierre-Alain Clavien, professor in the department of surgery and transplantation at the University of Zurich, who according to a 2014 citation from the American College of Surgeons has made “great contributions to our understanding of basic mechanisms in liver disease”.
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