Importance of First and Second Authorship in Assessing Citation-Based Scholarly Activity of US Radiation Oncology Residents and Subsequent Choice of Academic Versus Private Practice Career

Purpose: The Hirsch index (h-index) has been shown to correlate with radiation oncology residents’ having a first job in academics versus private practice, but it is limited by its inability to distinguish between the differing significance of coauthor roles in articles. Methods: A list of 2016 radiation oncology resident graduates and their postresidency career choices was compiled. The Scopus bibliometric citation database was then searched to collect h-index data for articles limited to first author only (h _f ) and first or second-author only (h _s ) for each resident. Results: Mean h _f was 2.06 for all resident graduates, and mean h _s was 2.77. Residents with PhDs had significantly higher h _f (3.11 versus 1.76, P <.01) and h _s (4.50 versus 2.28, P <.01). There was no statistically significant difference between male and female residents for h _f (2.19 versus 1.61, P =.11) or h _s (2.91 versus 2.25, P =.15). Residents choosing academia had higher h _f (2.72 versus 1.44, P <.01) and h _s (3.57 versus 2.01, P < 0.01) than those in private practice. Fewer than 20% of graduates with h _f = 0 and only 10% of graduates with h _s = 0 secured academic jobs. Conclusion: The average radiation oncology resident graduate has published a minimum of two first- and/or second-author articles cited at least twice. Graduates with PhDs and/or choosing academic careers were more likely to have higher h _f and h _s scores; there was no significant score difference by gender. Only 10% of graduates without any first- and/or second-author articles cited at least once secured academic jobs. These findings indicate that stratifying publications by first or second authorship when developing benchmarks for evaluating resident productivity and postresidency career type may be useful.