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Anesthesia research productivity in Canadian universities: a full picture? (II)

Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada, E-mail: francois.donati{at}umontreal.ca

To the Editor:

Tsui et al.¹ reported on the number of published articles from the Canadian departments of anesthesiology for the period 2000–2004, and mention the increasing productivity of Université de Montréal. It is encouraging to have our efforts recognized but we believe that Tsui et al. underestimated our research achievements.

According to its annual reports for 2000–2004, our department had 229 publications, with a high in 2001 (55) and a low in 2003 (35). No apparent upward trend is seen, contrary to Tsui et al.’s observation. However, the methodology used for the annual report is different from Tsui et al.’s. We enter all articles authored by at least one member of our department, including those written in collaboration with another department or university. However, the large discrepancy between our annual report and Tsui et al.’s finding prompted us to investigate the matter in more detail.

We searched the MEDLINE database using the PubMed search engine, as done by Tsui et al.,¹ using the same keywords, except that location was limited to Montreal. For the years 2000–2004, the search returned 171 entries, of which 82 (all included in our annual reports) were identified as coming from Université de Montréal. Tsui et al. reported 86, with an identical breakdown according to year of publication except for 2002 and 2004. The discrepancies are explained by Letters to the Editor (27); work attributed to another university (e.g., during a fellowship) or performed in collaboration with another department or university (86); missing address of authors of editorials or commentaries (12); identification of the department in French (13); and failure of the search engine to retrieve relevant articles (9). Most of these factors probably played a role for other university anesthesia departments as well, suggesting that publications from Canadian anesthesiologists as a whole might have been underestimated by Tsui et al.

Tsui et al. also mentioned the importance of research during residency training and the key role of mentorship. At Université de Montréal, a three-month period without any clinical duties is set aside to complete a research project. Between 2000 and 2004, residents appeared as first author on 32 articles. Of the 38 residents who completed a research rotation between 1997 and 2002, 25 (66%) published a peerreviewed article and 35 (92%) presented their work as an abstract and/or full length paper. Thus, residents contribute significantly to the research productivity of our department and, more importantly, to the growth of knowledge within our specialty.

Footnotes

Accepted for publication May 5, 2006.

Reference

Tsui BC, Li LX, Ma V, Wagner AM, Finucane BT. Declining randomized clinical trials from Canadian anesthesia departments? Can J Anesth 2006; 53: 226–35.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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