Doctors in Israel - publish a lot, are cited less

23% of all academic publications in Israel are in the field of clinical medicine. These data from the National Council for Research and Development in the Ministry of Science, collected in collaboration with the CBS, indicate a relatively large scope of engagement in research among doctors, however in terms of quality indicators - the story is different

Doctors in Israel devote an average of 6 hours a week to research and development, about 79% of them publish at least one academic publication a year and 23% of all academic publications in Israel are in the field of clinical medicine. These data from the National Council for Research and Development in the Ministry of Science, collected in collaboration with the CBS, indicate a relatively large scope of engagement in research among doctors.

However, Israel ranks Israel only 24th in the world in the number of publications in clinical medicine, a ranking that has deteriorated over the past decade. Moreover, in the average index of citations for publication in the field of clinical medicine, an index that indicates more the quality of publications than quantity, Israel ranks 23rd in the world with an average of 6.39 citations for publication in the field of clinical medicine between the years 2007 and 2011. This, while in Belgium and Denmark, which lead the table, the average is about 9.5.

The data are based on two surveys carried out by the CBS for the council and a database of the Shmuel Na'aman Institute. The first survey was conducted in 2009 on research and development (R&D) in hospitals and the second was conducted in 2011 among a sample of 1,000 doctors among 2,570 doctors with a clinical/academic appointment and a partial sample of doctors without an appointment employed in a hospital in Israel.

The survey conducted among doctors shows that the average weekly working hours for a doctor with an academic/clinical appointment at the hospital is 48, of which, on average, six working hours are devoted to R&D. Doctors in hospitals in the non-profit sector (such as Hadassah University Hospitals), dedicate the most hours per week to R&D - about 9 hours per week on average. In the government hospitals, the largest amount of hours is devoted to research and development, approximately 7,621 hours per week, due to the high number of doctors with appointments in this sector. The survey also shows that more than a third of the R&D work in the hospitals is carried out in the internal departments, and about 17% of the R&D hours are carried out in the surgery department.

In the HMOs and government hospitals, most of the R&D hours for research are devoted to work on applied research (44%), while in the non-profit sector, most of the hours (43%) are devoted to basic research. Also, more than half of the clinical trials are conducted in the government hospitals.

The number of doctors who submitted applications for patent registration in the years 2007 to 2011 was 220, and they represented only about 8.6% of all doctors with an academic/clinical appointment. The number of doctors who submitted applications for patents from the non-profit sector was significantly higher than the other sectors (about 19%) compared to the KPF sector (8%) and the government sector (6%). Of those who submitted applications for patents, approximately 44.4% submitted an application for one patent.

The percentage of doctors with clinical/academic appointments who published articles in 2010 and 2011 was about 79%, but only about 39% of them published more than 5 articles in these years. Relatively speaking, the highest article writing average belongs to doctors working in hospitals in the non-profit sector, where about 88% of doctors with academic/clinical appointments have published articles in the last two years. In the government hospitals, 82% of the doctors posted, compared to 73% of the doctors in the health fund.

Data collected by the council with the help of the Shmuel Na'aman Institute shows that the percentage of publications by Israelis in clinical medicine in 2011 was 23% of all scientific publications in Israel (2,799 publications out of 11,815 publications in all territories). The rate of publications in clinical medicine is the highest among all scientific publications. For comparison, only 11.9% of the publications are in physics and 4.7% in mathematics.

According to Prof. Gen. (resp.) Yitzhak Ben-Israel, chairman of the National R&D Council at the Ministry of Science, "The survey for the first time examined in depth the scope of research among doctors. The data indicate a relatively extensive involvement of doctors in research and a very high rate of academic publications in the field. However, it is possible that one of the reasons for the relatively low ranking of citations compared to the rest of the world in this field stems from a lack of sufficient training of doctors during their studies to conduct research, a topic that should be given more attention."