An Audit of General Surgery Publications by Indian Authors

Indian surgeons have a substantial workload. But how much of it do we document and publish thus facilitating evidence-based practice? We undertook to document the contribution of Indian authors to the world literature in general surgery and to elicit the view of Indian surgeons regarding scientific publications. We carried out a search of articles in general surgical journals, published by Indian authors working in India. The journals chosen were those with an impact factor of more than 2. In addition, the Indian Journal of Surgery, with an impact factor of 0.55, was included as it is our flagship journal. The period of study was between January 2014 and April 2020. Additionally, a survey was carried out among the members of the Karnataka State Chapter of the Association of Surgeons of India. The survey was designed to elicit responses from surgeons regarding their attitude towards surgical publications. In American Journal of Surgery, British Journal of Surgery and Annals of Surgery only one original publication each was found. In Canadian Journal of Surgery and Journal of American Medical Association Surgery there were no publications in the study period. Surgeons put forth several reasons for this lack of publication culture-the main ones being lack of motivation, lack of data and lack of training to write. It is clear that Indian authors contributed to a minuscule number of papers in scientific surgical journals. The culture of publication must be inculcated from an early stage of surgical training.