Scientific production in clinical medicine and international collaboration networks in South American countries

Background: International collaboration is increasingly used in biomedical research. Aim: To describe the characteristics of scientific production in Latin America and the main international collaboration networks for the period 2000 to 2009. Material and Methods: Search for papers generated in Latin American countries in the Clinical Medicine database of ISI Web of Knowledge v.4.10 - Current Contents Connect. The country of origin of the corresponding author was considered the producing country of the paper. International collaboration was analyzed calculating the number of countries that contributed to the generation of a particular paper. Collaboration networks were graphed to determine …