THE CONTRIBUTION OF GENERAL SURGEONS TO INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS FROM TURKEY

Abstract

The scientific ranking of individuals, institutions and countries is based on the contribution made as new scientific material and this, usually, is quantitated by the number of papers published in International journals. The contribution of general surgeons to these International publications is not known. In this paper, the contribution of Turkish general surgeons to papers published from Turkey in journals of Science Citation Index (SCI) between 1980-1994 is investigated. Among all publications from Turkey, which have appeared in SCI, 37% has originated from medical institutions and of these 93% were from medical faculties and 7% from other institutions. Among the medical publications, 32% was published by the investigators working in surgical fields. General surgery oriented papers constituted 15% of all surgical publications. With this 15% of contribution, general surgery takes the second place following pathology. A gradual increase in the number of publications was observed and the total number was 15 in 1980-1984, 54 in 1985-1990, and 207 in 1990-1994. The limited financial sources in Turkey for scientific research and the lack of a serious political objective to increase the number of publications have led to the present situation of the number of publications. In order to increase the number of International publications from general surgery, which is the oldest and most crowded surgical branch, more financial and honorary support is required.