Benchmarking Scholarly Activity by Pharmacists Who Are Fellows Within the American College of Critical Care Medicine

OBJECTIVES: Quantify scholarly activity by pharmacists who are Fellows within the American College of Critical Care Medicine and to develop a potential publication benchmark for fellowship application. DESIGN: Review of the Scopus and PubMed online citation databases. SETTING: None. PATIENTS: None. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Pharmacists designated Fellow of Critical Care Medicine (FCCM) were identified in January 2021 by the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Pharmacists designated Master of Critical Care Medicine (MCCM), without an active license, or were not identified in either online citation database were excluded. Practice setting characteristics were obtained from the American Hospital Association including country, state, geographic region, number of staffed beds, and hospital designation. Two online citation databases (Scopus and PubMed) were queried in February 2021, and year of first publication, total publications, citations, and Hirsch index were recorded. Of the 152 pharmacists designated FCCM, 138 (91%) were evaluable. Reasons for exclusion included MCCM designation (n = 7; 5%), lack of data in either online citation database (n = 4; 3%), and no active pharmacist license (n = 3; 2%). Most pharmacists were practicing in the Southern geographic region of the United States (n = 62; 45%) and at an academic medical center (n = 116; 84%). The median year of FCCM convocation was 2016 (2012–2019) and of the first publication was 2007 (2002–2011). After removing duplicates, 4,488 unique publications were identified. The median number of publications per individual pharmacist was 20 (9–43) with 10 (5–19) between the year of their first publication and FCCM convocation. Most scholarly activity was in the form of original research (n = 3,173; 71%) or reviews (n = 795; 18%). Individual pharmacists have 244 (99–661) citations and an h-index of 8 (5–13). CONCLUSIONS: Pharmacists designated FCCM have maintained a high level of scholarly activity. Pharmacists pursuing fellowship may use these data as a benchmark for fulfilling aspects of the core area of scholarly activities related to critical care medicine prior to application.