"Anthony, You Have One More Research Citation": Social Networking For Researchers

The skeptical cardiologist joined ResearchGate recently. Per wikipedia:

ResearchGate is a social networking site for scientists and researchers[3] to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators.[4]According to a study by Nature and an article in Times Higher Education, it is the largest academic social network in terms of active users,[5][6] although other services have more registered users and more recent data suggests that almost as many academics have Google Scholar profiles.[7]

I published lots of research during my academic career in cardiology (1987-1996) and have written a few papers in the last few years while in clinical practice. Since I verified with ResearchGate the publications I was co-author on they regularly send me notifications when they find that my work has been referenced by another paper.
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I find such notifications fascinating on a number of levels. First, it reminds me of a topic that I was incredibly interested in to which I contributed meaningful information. This, in turn has me ponder the importance of my prior research and the current status of knowledge in the area.
I feel a strong compulsion to click on the “view citing research” button to see who cited me and why. Once on the ResearchGate site there are multiple things to further distract me from whatever I was doing previously, ranging from a statistical summary of my works read to a listing of papers that have been cited.
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You can imagine how addictive this site is for me. For example, that top citation about atrial septal aneurysm from nearly 30 years ago is the first paper to describe the relationship of atrial septal aneurysm described by transesophageal echocardiography and stroke, a relationship which has become even more significant since the approval of atrial septal occluder devices for treatment of stroke caused by PFO.
That citation of “systolic anterior motion of the mitral chordae tendineae” reminds me that nothing significant has been written in this area since my paper. I couldn’t figure out the significance of chordal SAM then and to this day nobody has.
Clicking on “view citation” takes me to a page which shows me the citing paper along with their stats on my paper. From there I can click on a link to the citing paper which was published in a curious journal entitled Cureus.
Sure enough my paper is reference #7 (Systolic anterior motion of the mitral chordae tendineae: prevalence and clinical and Doppler-echocardiographic features) and the authors are listed as:

Anthony C. Pearson, MD'Correspondence information about the author MD Anthony C. Pearson

Tomasz J. Pasierski, MD
David A. Orsinelli, MD

Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiology, The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio, USA
with the technical assistance of Peter Gray and Karen Huschart
Reading the list of my co-authors and contributors brings back fond memories of days spent in research collaboration and discussion. I ponder catching up with long-lost colleagues.
ResearchGate also tantalizes me by showing how many times my 96 research publications have been cited-8,594 times.
ResearchGate gives me a score. Mine is 39.78 and is apparently higher than 97.5% of ResearchGate members.
I have no clue what the RG score means but I am  really happy to have a high one.
Alas, I have added ResearchGate to the list of websites clamoring for my attention and my (really limited) time.
Skeptically Yours,
-ACP
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3 thoughts on “"Anthony, You Have One More Research Citation": Social Networking For Researchers”

  1. FactBook for the Fact Finders ?
    – It’s one thing for patients to annoy their doctors with the latest discovery from Dr Oz et al, now we Patients will be afflicted with the latest ‘useless study’ from Research Gate !
    🙁

    Reply
  2. Dr. Pearson, read your blog. Damn… You really are smart (and famous).
    Janine Broda
    ScImage, Inc. / Celebrating 25 Years of Powering Customer Success
    (303) 669-4201
    Sent from Outlook Mobile
    ________________________________

    Reply

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