Abstract
Background: Research is a critical for the advancement of respiratory care. Fellows of the American Association for Respiratory Care (FAARC) are nominated due to their significant contributions to the respiratory care profession. Research output is potentially an important component of qualification for FAARC. The purpose of this study is to report the academic output of respiratory therapists (RTs) with the FAARC designation.
Methods: We identified FAARCs from the AARC website. Research output was assessed by searching the SCOPUS database between May 2022 and May 2023. We collected total research documents, citations, H-index, co-authors, and type of document from each database. For FAARCs, we included gender, highest degree earned, and year inducted. We compared FAARC with RTs who are Fellows in the Society of Critical Care Medicine (FCCM). Results are descriptive and we compared those with only the FAARC designation to those with both FAARC and FCCM designations using chi square or Mann-Whitney test as appropriate.
Results: We identified 381 RT FAARCs, 14 RT FCCMs, and 10 with both designations. FAARCs were predominantly male (261, 70%), 81 (22%) had a doctorate, 137 (37%) had a master, 50 (13%) a bachelor, and 107 (29%) did not have a degree reported. There were no differences for gender or highest degree between FAARC and FCCM. FAARCs had a total of 3,724 publications and 110,207 citations and those with both designations had 1,304 publications and 43,181 citations. In SCOPUS, 169 (46%) FAARCs had no publications and 27% had ≥ 10 publications. Among those with both credentials, 1 (10%) had no publications, and 7 (70%) had ≥ 10 publications. FAARCs inducted in 1998 and 1999 had significantly (P < .001) more publications than other eras, Figures 1 and 2. The median publications for FAARCs were 1 (0-10), H-index 1 (0-4), co-authors 0 (0-29), and citations 1 (0-112). Compared to those with both credentials, FAARCs had significantly fewer publications (1 [0-10] vs 50 [11-332], P < .001), lower H-index (1 [0-4] vs 18 [5-45], P < .001), fewer co-authors (0 [0-29] vs 233 [32-765], P < =.001), and fewer citations (1 [0-112] vs 1,486 [114-7,702]).
Conclusions: RT FAARCs had a large number of publications and citations; however, nearly half did not have any publications. Those with both FAARC and FCCM had significantly more academic output per fellow, although there are only 10 with both credentials.
Fellows of the American Association for Respiratory Care without any peer reviewed publications in SCOPUS.
Fellows of the American Association for Respiratory Care with at least 10 peer reviewed publications in SCOPUS.
Footnotes
Commercial Relationships: Mr. Miller is a Section Editor for Respiratory Care. He has received honorarium from Saxe Communications, S2N Health, and Fisher and Paykel.
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