Top 20 countries in clinical medicine based on citations per paper

	Country/Territory	Papers	Citations	Impact
1	Finland	22,758	386,397	16.98
2	Netherlands	64,335	1,042,551	16.21
3	Denmark	23,322	376,386	16.14
4	US	709,347	11,326,659	15.97
5	Scotland	23,774	374,017	15.73
6	Canada	84,865	1,333,963	15.72
7	Switzerland	39,837	614,622	15.43
8	Belgium	30,713	470,997	15.34
9	Sweden	46,871	713,694	15.23
10	Norway	15,413	230,389	14.95
11	England	167,891	2,357,951	14.04
12	Italy	96,432	1,235,7	12.81
13	Australia	57,342	733,180	12.79
14	New Zealand	9,317	116,184	12.47
15	Austria	25,840	305,999	11.84
16	France	111,517	1,301,643	11.67
17	Germany	173,039	1,939,097	11.21
18	Israel	26,400	281,564	10.67
19	Spain	51,135	532,146	10.41
20	Japan	166,775	1,591,854	9.54

Essential Science Indicators lists countries ranked in the top 50 per cent for a field over a given period, based on total citations. In clinical medicine, 106 nations are listed, meaning 212 were surveyed. Twenty-six nations earned at least 100,000 citations. Finland, the Netherlands and Denmark top the list by impact, while producing only a fraction of that of the US, which is ranked fourth by impact.

The data above were extracted from Thomson Scientific’s Essential Science Indicators database. This database, currently covering the period January 1997 to December 2007, surveys only journal articles (original research reports and review articles) indexed by Thomson Scientific. Articles are assigned to a category based on the journals in which they were published and Thomson Scientific’s journal-to-category field definition scheme. Both articles tabulated and citation counts to those articles are for the period indicated. This ranking in clinical medicine is by citations per paper among nations that collected 100,000 or more citations to reveal weighted impact. For articles with multiple authors from different nations, each nation receives full, not fractional, citation credit. For more on Thomson Scientific’s Essential Science Indicators, see http://scientific.thomson.com/products/esi.