title: Surgical Education's 100 Most Cited Articles: A Bibliometric Analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Bibliometric analysis highlights the key topics and publications, which have shaped surgical education. Here, the 100 most cited articles in the arena of surgical education were analyzed.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thomson Reuters Web of Science was interrogated using the keyword search terms "surgery" and ("learning" or "skills" or "competence" or "assessment" or "training" or "procedure-based assessments" or "performance" or "technical skills" or "curriculum" or "education" or "mentoring"] to identify all English language full articles, and the 100 most cited articles were analyzed by topic, journal, author, year, institution, and country of origin.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 403,733 eligible articles were returned and the median citation number was 164 (range: 107-1018). The most cited article (by Seymour, Yale University School of Medicine, Annals of Surgery, 1018 citations) focused on the use of virtual reality surgical simulation training. Annals of Surgery published the highest number of articles and received the most citations (n = 16, 3715 citations). The countries with the greatest number of publications were the USA (n = 45), Canada (n = 19), and the UK (n = 18). The commonest topics included simulation (n = 45) and assessment of clinical competence (n = 40).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Surgical skill acquisition and assessment was the area of focus of 85% of the most cited contemporary articles, and this study provides the most cited references, serving as a guide as to what makes a citable published work in the field of surgical education.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Alexander H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Matthews
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Tarig
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Abdelrahman
authors.affiliation: Divison of Cancer Genetics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Arfon G M T
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Powell
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, United Kingdom. Electronic address: wyn.lewis4@wales.nhs.uk.
authors.forename: Wyn G
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Lewis
mesh_terms: D015706:Bibliometrics; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003479:Curriculum; D013502:General Surgery / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D011642:Publications; D011643:Publishing
keywords: bibliometric analysis; citations; education; surgery; training