Portuguese scientific output in medical education between 2013–2022: From local to global networks

Introduction: The scope of medical education (ME) as an autonomous field of study is still under debate. The present study aimed to identify publications addressing the topic of ME, published in international medical journals, by Portuguese authors, alone or in collaboration with foreign colleagues. Methods: Publications were retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science, between 2013 and 2022. Each publication was identified by title, name, and affiliation of the corresponding author. Affiliation of all authors was also taken into consideration to detect networks. Titles were used to identify subjects, complemented by keywords and abstract. Journal Citation Reports and Scimago Journal Rank indexed journals in the education category were identified and from these ME journals were selected. We chose 29 journals from which 17 had publications from Portuguese's authors in a total of 80 publications. Results: The top journals in terms of productivity were BMC Medical Education, Medical Teacher, and Advances in Health Sciences Education. The Portuguese international cooperation involved Europe (United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, and Ireland), North America (USA and Canada) and Oceania (Australia). Outside the Northen Hemisphere, cooperation involved mostly Brazil. Nationally, the dominant networks involved the Universities of Porto and Minho. Five core areas were identified namely “medical education”, “medical student”, “health care personnel”, “medical school”, and “undergraduate medical education”. Conclusion: Despite the limitations of this study because the search was only focused on ME journals it showed a trend towards internationalisation of some Portuguese authors, particularly those who were also involved in established national networks.