Objective: Most clinicians are aware of the importance of using "evidence based medicine" to support their clinical practice, but where does the evidence come from? The aim of this study was to examine the concordance between papers deemed "important" by urologists compared with those selected by the more objective criteria of the citation index.
Method: To achieve this, two approaches were used; firstly "experts" in various fields of urology were asked to select what they felt were classic papers and secondly urology journals were searched to find the 100 most cited papers for 1982-1997 and 1935-1997. The results of both of these "league tables" were then combined.
Results: The most cited papers varied depending on the time period studied. When the experts' selections were combined with those obtained via citation index it was found that the experts had chosen papers with a high citation index from non-urological as well as urological journals.
Conclusion: It is possible to collate the classic papers within urology and the most effective means of doing so is to combine objective selection with expert choice. This is an exercise that can be repeated within any specialty.