D84. Recent Trends in Research Collaboration and Implications for Academic Plastic Surgeons

PURPOSE: Interdisciplinary collaboration is known to enhance patient care and outcomes. This study aimed to quantify interdisciplinary collaboration patterns in plastic surgery. METHODS: PubMed was searched for articles published by academic plastic surgery programs from 2018 to 2023. Articles were considered collaborative if the senior author was from an academic plastic surgery institution and at least one author was from a different department. RESULTS: Of 6525 included articles, only 44.6% were collaborative, with the majority (62.6%) collaborating with another surgical department. The top three collaborated-with specialties were general surgery (17.6%), otolaryngology (14.4%), and orthopedic surgery (12.0%). Non-surgical specialties were involved in 38.2% of collaborations. Interestingly, there was no overlap between the three academic programs with the highest publication volume and three academic programs with the highest proportion of collaborative publications. Productivity at an institution and the proportion of their articles with collaboration were independent (R2=0.006314, p=0.6038). Similarly, there was no overlap between the three plastic surgery journals with the highest article volume and those with the highest proportion of collaborative articles. Most collaborative articles were published in non-plastic surgery journals (77.4%) and almost all non-collaborative articles were published in plastic surgery journals (99.6%) (2251 vs. 3598, p≪.0001). CONCLUSION: This study sheds light on the prevalence of interdisciplinary collaboration in plastic surgery, emphasizing its importance in research. These findings provide valuable insights for plastic surgeons aiming to expand the reach and impact of their research.