The database of the publications by Estonian medical scientists at the Medical Information Centre of Tartu University Hospital

Background

Estonia is among the smallest of the European Union member states. Although Estonia’s area is slightly larger than the area of the Netherlands or Denmark, its population is only 1,339,662. In 2012 there are 5881 physicians in Estonia, i.e. 439 physicians per 100,000 inhabitants.Tartu University Hospital is the only university hospital in Estonia. The Medical Information Centre of Tartu University Hospital provides the whole medical staff in Estonia with information resources.The activity of using the information resources of the Hospital is also exemplified by the result of a webometrics study based on to the data of the Ranking Web of World Hospitals  Tartu University Hospital occupies the 65th place among the European Hospitals and the 257^th place among hospitals worldwide.

Goal

One of the most important tasks of the Medical Information Centre of Tartu University Hospital was the creation of the database of Estonian medical literature (The Database of the Publications of Estonian Medical Scientists). This database serves as the basic material in analysing the activity of Estonian medical scientists. How many articles were published during ten years (2002 – 2011) by Estonian scientists and by Estonian medical scientists? How many papers were published by the medical staff of Tartu University Hospital? How many papers prepared in cooperation with other hospitals were published during five years (2007 – 2011) in Tartu University Hospital? In which international journals were the papers by medical scientists of Tartu University Hospital published?

Methods

The basic material for the bibliometric analysis consisted of the journals represented in the databases Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge and the database of the publications by medical scientists available at the Medical Information Centre of Tartu University Hospital.

Results

During ten years (2002 – 2011) altogether 12,178 research papers by Estonian scientists were represented in the database of the Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge (WOK), among them 3,292 papers by Estonian medical scientists. This accounts for 27% of the total publication production of Estonian scientists. In recent years the number of publications by Estonian medical scientists has continuously formed one-fourth of all published scientific papers in Estonia.It is evident that during the decade the number of published papers increased. When in 2002 the number of titles by Estonian medical scientists in the databases of the Web of Knowledge was 177, then their number had increased to 403 in 2011 i.e. more than twofold. The proportion of medical papers increased accordingly, the ratio being almost similar during the same decade. The present bibliometric analysis showed a steady increase in the publication productivity of Estonian medical scientists.

 Conclusion

As is evident, the proportion of journals with a high impact factor among those that have continuously published papers by Estonian medical scientists is relatively large.During the last five years the largest number of articles were contributed by the Children’s Clinic, the Neurology Clinic, the United Laboratories, the Internal Medicine Clinic  and the Women’s Clinic of Tartu University Hospital. The Andrology Centre has published 122 articles during its five-year existence, i.e. 24 articles per year. Such a result was achieved owing to the participation of the Centre’s physicians in several international research projects.In some respect, the distribution according to the clinics also demonstrates in which fields of medicine the research activity of the medical scientists of the hospital has been more productive.
Last, but not least – Tartu University Hospital every year acknowledges its most productive scientist with the Tartu University Hospital Science Award.

 Table 1. Ranking of the clinics of Tartu University Hospital on the basis of the number of published articles during the last 5 years:

About half of the research papers by physicians of the Hospital were completed in cooperation with medical scientists from other countries and from different departments of the University of Tartu Faculty of Medicine.

Table 2. Papers prepared in cooperation with other Estonian hospitals and other countries:

The most important partners are from England, Sweden and Germany.

Table 3. Number of international journals (cited in Web of Knowledge) in which the medical scientists of the Tartu University Hospital have published their papers:

Journals with high impact factor, in which medical scientists of the Tartu University Hospital have published their papers.

New England Journal Medicine

The Lancet

Nature Review Drug Discovery

The Lancet Neurology

Annals of Neurology

Nature

Circulation

Table 4. Total number of publications by the medical staff of the Hospital and the number of articles published in international journals: 

Tartu University Hospital plays a very important role in the publication of articles on medical science as 80% of all medical publications in Estonia are completed by physicians of the Hospital and by the faculty members of the University of Tartu.