title: Factors influencing scholarly impact: does urology fellowship training affect research output?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Residents seek postresidency fellowship training to increase competency with novel surgical techniques and augment their fund of knowledge. Research productivity is a vital component of advancement in academic urology. Our objectives were to use the h-index (an objective and readily available bibliometric that has been repeatedly shown to correlate with scholarly impact, funding procurement, and academic promotion in urology as well as other specialties) to determine whether any relationship exists between fellowship training and scholarly impact among academic urologists. Additional examination was performed to determine whether any differences in scholarly influence are present among practitioners in the major urologic subspecialties.
  
  
  METHODS
  Overall, 851 faculty members from 101 academic urology departments were organized by academic rank and fellowship completed. Research productivity was calculated using the h-index, calculated from the Scopus database.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was no statistical difference in h-index found between fellowship-trained and nonfellowship-trained academic urologists. The highest h-indices were seen among urologic oncologists (18.1 ± 0.95) and nonfellowship-trained urologists (14.62 ± 0.80). Nearly 70% of department chairs included in this analysis were urologic oncologists or general urologists.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  No difference in h-index existed between fellowship-trained and nonfellowship-trained urologists, although practitioners in the subspecialty cohorts with the highest research productivity (nonfellowship-trained and urologic oncologists) comprised 70% of department chairpersons. This relationship suggests that a strong research profile is highly valued during selection for academic promotion. Differences existed on further comparison by subspecialty. Fellowship training may represent another potential opportunity to introduce structured research experiences for trainees.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Division of Urology, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey. Electronic address: khushabu@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Khushabu
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kasabwala
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Division of Urology, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey.
authors.forename: Christopher M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Morton
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan.
authors.forename: Peter F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Svider
authors.affiliation: Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
authors.forename: Thomas A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Nahass
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey; Department of Neurological Surgery, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey; Center for Skull Base and Pituitary Surgery, Neurological Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey.
authors.forename: Jean Anderson
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Eloy
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Division of Urology, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey.
authors.forename: Imani
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Jackson-Rosario
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005257:Fellowships and Scholarships; D014481:United States; D014572:Urology / Q000193:education*
keywords: Medical Knowledge; Practice-Based Learning and Improvement; Professionalism; academic promotion; fellowship training; research output; research productivity; scholarly productivity; urology