Abstract
Background Financial relationships between industry and microsurgeons help facilitate innovation
but have the potential to bias a surgeon's academic work. To better understand industry–academic
relationships, this study investigated the association between industry payments made
to microsurgeons and their academic influence.
Methods A cross-sectional analysis of microsurgeons at Accreditation Council for Graduate
Medical Education–accredited plastic surgery residency programs during the 2020–2021
academic year was performed. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Open Payments
Database was used to collect industry payments (research and nonresearch related)
to each surgeon. Academic influence was measured by Hirsch index (h-index) and number
of publications. Mann–Whitney's U and Kruskal–Wallis' tests were used for statistical analysis.
Results Of the 199 microsurgeons identified, 156 (78.39%) received an industry nonresearch
payment, but 0 (0.0%) received an industry research payment. Surgeons who received
any amount of industry payments did not have a higher mean h-index or higher mean
number of publications than surgeons with no industry payments. However, surgeons
with total industry payments more than $10,000 (n = 15) had a higher number of publications than surgeons with no industry payments
(135.47 vs. 36.02, p = 0.0074), $1 to $1,000 in payments (135.47 vs. 34.37, p = 0.0006), and $1,000 to $10,000 in payments (135.47 vs. 45.43, p = 0.0268). Surgeons with total industry payments more than $10,000 also had higher
h-indices than surgeons with $1 to $1,000 in payments (24.4 vs. 10.34, p = 0.0039) and $1,000 to $10,000 in payments (24.4 vs. 11.34, p = 0.0413).
Conclusion Industry funding is associated with higher h-index and higher number of publications
for high earners (> $10,000). Private companies may favor these surgeons for their
academic expertise.
Keywords
industry funding - microsurgery - surgical innovation - academic surgeon - plastic
surgery
