Assessing United States Ophthalmology Departments by Faculty Academic Achievement

Background: Reputation-based rankings of U.S. ophthalmology departments strongly influence trainee and faculty decision-making but rely heavily on subjective survey data. Objective, transparent methodologies for comparing academic achievement across departments are lacking. Purpose: To assess U.S. ophthalmology departments using a novel, objective, standardized, and transparent system employing three measures of faculty academic achievement: National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, lifetime Hirsch (h)-index, and journal impact factor (JIF)-weighted journal editorial board membership. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a list of ophthalmology residency-trained faculty was compiled for each U.S. ophthalmology department with an associated residency training program. Faculty member NIH funding was obtained for the period 2020-2022, and average yearly NIH funding by department was calculated. Faculty member lifetime H-indices were obtained and averaged across each department. JIF-weighted editorial board membership was calculated by cross-referencing the editorial boards of 30 top ophthalmology journals with department faculty lists to identify faculty with editorship. A total score was then calculated for each department. Departments were compared across individual and cumulative metrics. Results: The top 5 departments according to annual NIH funding were Harvard University, University of Washington, University of California San Francisco (UCSF), Stanford University, and Johns Hopkins University (JHU). The top 5 departments according to average lifetime H-index were JHU, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Miami, University of California San Diego (UCSD), and University of Iowa. The top 5 departments according to total JIF-weighted editorial board membership were JHU, Harvard University, Thomas Jefferson University, UCLA, and University of Miami. The top 10 departments overall were JHU, Harvard University, UCLA, Stanford University, UCSD, University of Illinois Chicago, University of Michigan, UCSF, University of Miami, and University of Pennsylvania. Conclusions: Academic department rankings have been shown to significantly influence key stakeholder preferences; however, popular ranking systems are limited by opaque methodology and/or reliance on subjective data. Herein, we demonstrate the feasibility of a transparent, standardized approach by which to assess ophthalmology departments by faculty academic achievement using three objective metrics derived from publicly available data.