Medical Education Research Trends, 1989–2018: A Bibliometric and Social Network Analysis

Background: We are now in the third generation of medical education reform. To fully grasp this transformation, we need to identify the field’s knowledge structure. This study conducted a bibliometric analysis to discover the general publication statue during the last three decades (1989–2018) with an eye for identifying prolific institutions, core journals, international collaboration, and the evolution of key themes. Methods: We retrieved 15,329 papers from the Web of Science Core Collection database that were published between 1989 and 2018 , and we analysed them to determine prolific institutions, core journals, institutional collaboration statue, and hot spots of research. R studio, SciMAT, and VOSviewer were jointly applied. For a better understanding of thematic evolution in the field, we split the study period into three sub-periods with equal time spans. Results: We discovered that, worldwide, scholars are increasingly attracted to research on medical education. Medical Education is the most prolific journal in the field. While the US publishes an overwhelming proportion of the most relevant papers, articles published by the UK are, on average, most frequently cited. We identify five key research centres based on the most prolific academic institutions, and our analysis of relevant collaborations reveals that international collaboration is common. The hottest themes during each sub-period are revealed and how they evolve across different time spans are also detected. Conclusions: This bibliometric study identifies the scientific structure of medical education research over the past three decades. Ultimately, it may help scholars identify new topics and future research challenges in this field and, moreover, highlight meaningful evidence for policymakers in the field of medical teaching innovation.