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With their current report of “100 Most Cited Articles in Fracture Surgery,” which appeared in the December 2013 issue of The American Journal of Orthopedics, Baldwin and colleagues expand upon “classic citation” reviews that have been reported in recent years in orthopedic surgery and other fields including clinical care medicine and anesthesia.
I so enjoyed reviewing these top 100 articles which brought back fond (mostly!) memories of my orthopedic training in the early 1980s and my first reading of such classics as Neer’s 1970 article on displaced proximal humerus fractures, and Gustilo’s 1976 paper on open fractures, two of the most frequently cited authors in this list.
Several aspects of Baldwin’s paper are noteworthy. The first is how technology has fundamentally altered our access to information. Only with the aid of tools such as a computer could the vast amount of publications spanning nearly 60 years have been reviewed to formulate this top 100 list. The PubMed and Google Scholar search engines of today have transformed the formally tedious—and often incomplete—literature reviews of my residency days.
Second, nearly two-thirds of the clinical papers were evidence level IV case series reporting on the outcomes of patients treated with one method with neither comparison groups nor sensitivity analysis. It is truly astounding that so much of the foundation of orthopedic surgery is based on studies with so little scientific rigor. Of course, this is not to diminish enormous contributions of the early leaders of modern orthopedic surgery, whose keen powers of observation and vast clinical experience established principles of clinical practice still valuable today.
Lastly, the authors rightly state that the exercise of reviewing these most cited fracture articles offers "insight into the past and current trends … and provides the foundation for future investigations." Rigorous future scientific studies using modern techniques will either confirm or refute the work of our classic teachers. With continued research, we will discover "the truth" and determine which treatments really benefit our patients. In the end, that is what really matters.
Baldwin K, Namdari S, Donegan D, Kavatch K, Ahn J, Mehta S. 100 Most Cited Articles in Fracture Surgery. Am J Orthop. 2013;42(12):547-552.
With their current report of “100 Most Cited Articles in Fracture Surgery,” which appeared in the December 2013 issue of The American Journal of Orthopedics, Baldwin and colleagues expand upon “classic citation” reviews that have been reported in recent years in orthopedic surgery and other fields including clinical care medicine and anesthesia.
I so enjoyed reviewing these top 100 articles which brought back fond (mostly!) memories of my orthopedic training in the early 1980s and my first reading of such classics as Neer’s 1970 article on displaced proximal humerus fractures, and Gustilo’s 1976 paper on open fractures, two of the most frequently cited authors in this list.
Several aspects of Baldwin’s paper are noteworthy. The first is how technology has fundamentally altered our access to information. Only with the aid of tools such as a computer could the vast amount of publications spanning nearly 60 years have been reviewed to formulate this top 100 list. The PubMed and Google Scholar search engines of today have transformed the formally tedious—and often incomplete—literature reviews of my residency days.
Second, nearly two-thirds of the clinical papers were evidence level IV case series reporting on the outcomes of patients treated with one method with neither comparison groups nor sensitivity analysis. It is truly astounding that so much of the foundation of orthopedic surgery is based on studies with so little scientific rigor. Of course, this is not to diminish enormous contributions of the early leaders of modern orthopedic surgery, whose keen powers of observation and vast clinical experience established principles of clinical practice still valuable today.
Lastly, the authors rightly state that the exercise of reviewing these most cited fracture articles offers "insight into the past and current trends … and provides the foundation for future investigations." Rigorous future scientific studies using modern techniques will either confirm or refute the work of our classic teachers. With continued research, we will discover "the truth" and determine which treatments really benefit our patients. In the end, that is what really matters.
Baldwin K, Namdari S, Donegan D, Kavatch K, Ahn J, Mehta S. 100 Most Cited Articles in Fracture Surgery. Am J Orthop. 2013;42(12):547-552.
With their current report of “100 Most Cited Articles in Fracture Surgery,” which appeared in the December 2013 issue of The American Journal of Orthopedics, Baldwin and colleagues expand upon “classic citation” reviews that have been reported in recent years in orthopedic surgery and other fields including clinical care medicine and anesthesia.
I so enjoyed reviewing these top 100 articles which brought back fond (mostly!) memories of my orthopedic training in the early 1980s and my first reading of such classics as Neer’s 1970 article on displaced proximal humerus fractures, and Gustilo’s 1976 paper on open fractures, two of the most frequently cited authors in this list.
Several aspects of Baldwin’s paper are noteworthy. The first is how technology has fundamentally altered our access to information. Only with the aid of tools such as a computer could the vast amount of publications spanning nearly 60 years have been reviewed to formulate this top 100 list. The PubMed and Google Scholar search engines of today have transformed the formally tedious—and often incomplete—literature reviews of my residency days.
Second, nearly two-thirds of the clinical papers were evidence level IV case series reporting on the outcomes of patients treated with one method with neither comparison groups nor sensitivity analysis. It is truly astounding that so much of the foundation of orthopedic surgery is based on studies with so little scientific rigor. Of course, this is not to diminish enormous contributions of the early leaders of modern orthopedic surgery, whose keen powers of observation and vast clinical experience established principles of clinical practice still valuable today.
Lastly, the authors rightly state that the exercise of reviewing these most cited fracture articles offers "insight into the past and current trends … and provides the foundation for future investigations." Rigorous future scientific studies using modern techniques will either confirm or refute the work of our classic teachers. With continued research, we will discover "the truth" and determine which treatments really benefit our patients. In the end, that is what really matters.
Baldwin K, Namdari S, Donegan D, Kavatch K, Ahn J, Mehta S. 100 Most Cited Articles in Fracture Surgery. Am J Orthop. 2013;42(12):547-552.