HISTORYSurgical Education’s 100 Most Cited Articles: A Bibliometric Analysis
Introduction
The development of surgical education and published works has a long and distinguished history, originating from Galen of Pergamon (AD 131-201), a prominent Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher in the Roman Empire, and arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity. His theories dominated western medical science for more than 1500 years and his anatomical reports were a mainstay of medieval physicians’ university curricula, with medical students continuing to study his writings well into the 19th century.1
The western world’s most senior surgical college, in 1505, the surgeons and barbers of Edinburgh, now known as Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, UK, was formally incorporated as a Craft of the Burgh,2 when a seal of cause (charter of privileges) was granted by the town council of Edinburgh, conferring certain privileges and imposing certain crucial duties, the most important of these being that every master surgeon should have full knowledge of anatomy and surgical procedures; that all apprentices be literate; and that this knowledge be thoroughly tested at the apprenticeship end. All clauses remain relevant to contemporary surgical practice, and with the development of formal training programs, the development of published research works has become allied with successful training progression and more recently associated with assessment of competence progression.
The standard of published works can be rated by means of citation analysis (ranking and evaluating an article or journal related to the number of citations received), thereby establishing a citation rank list, a surrogate marker of quality, which identifies the most influential publications.3 Several reports have used citation rank analysis to identify the most influential articles in specialist fields, including trauma and orthopedic surgery,4 plastic surgery,5 general surgery,6 urology,7 and oncology.8, 9 Yet at the time of writing, only 1 report exists regarding the most influential articles in surgical education by Wohlauer, describing the 20 most cited publications between 2002 and 2012.10 The aim of this study was to amplify the above and determine the topics and specifically the studies that had been most cited in the arena of surgical education by means of a bibliometric analysis of the 100 most cited articles over the past 100 years.
Section snippets
Methods
A search of the Thompson Reuters Web of Science citation indexing database and research platform was completed using the search term “surgery” and also using the following terms (“learning” or “skills” or “competence” or “assessment” or “training” or “workplace-based assessments)” or “procedure-based assessments” or “performance” or “technical skills” or “curriculum” or “education” or “mentoring”). The returned dataset was filtered to include only English language and full articles and sorted
Results
The Thompson Reuters Web of Science returned 403,733 full length, English language articles. Table 1 lists the 100 most cited of these articles.11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99,
Discussion
Education per se, derived from the Latin word educo (comprising e; out of, and duco; I lead) has long been cherished as the key to improved opportunity, well-being, and quality of life. Almost 2 millennia ago, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius111 in the book “Meditations” (Book 1, AD 115-180) wrote,
“Not to have frequented public schools and to have had good teachers at home, and to realize that on such things man should spend lavishly.” Physician to the famously philosophical emperor, Claudius
Conclusion
The most cited articles highlighted in the current study describe the use of simulation training as a means of acquiring technical skills and competence, as well as reporting methods of clinical competence assessment. In addition to providing a benchmark as to what may be considered the most cited articles in surgical education, this work serves as a reference for researchers and clinicians alike as to the characteristics of a citable article in the arena of surgical education and training. The
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