Do Departments in a College of Medicine Differ in Academic Productivity As Assessed by the H-Indices of Tenured Faculty Members?

BACKGROUND: It is uncertain how different academic medical departments differ in academic productivity as assessed by commonly used bibliometric measures, eg, the h-index (the maximum value of h such that an author has published h papers that have each been cited at least h times). AIM: This project examined whether departments in the University of Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine differed in h-indices of tenured faculty members. METHODS: Based on 2020 data obtained from the College (and other University sources), the author compiled three data sets of Scopus h-indices of tenured faculty members identified by department, varying in size due to slightly different inclusion criteria (N’s=334, 341, and 354). Analyses compared h-indices between ranks and among departments. RESULTS: In the basic data set (N=334), h-indices of the 230 (69%) full and 104 (31%) associate professors differed based on a t-test, means (standard deviations)=37 (17) and 20 (7), respectively, p<0.0001. For both full and associate professors separately, departments differed in h-indices based on analyses of variance, p=0.04 and p=0.02, respectively. In the expanded data sets, departmental differences were significant for full and associate professors (with N=341) and full professors (with N=354). CONCLUSION: Departments differed in academic productivity of tenured faculty members as assessed by h-indices. This was not a powerful, monolithic effect, ie, relative departmental standings for full and associate professors were not consistent, and departmental differences for associate professors were nonsignificant in the largest (N=354) data set. Multiple factors probably contributed to departmental differences and should be further investigated.