Objective: To evaluate the contribution towards research of medical universities and universities with affiliated medical colleges in Pakistan.

Methods: List of Pakistani medical universities and their published research annually from 2007 to 2010 was retrieved in April 2011 from the Higher Education Commission database with due permission. As per the Commission's criteria, only those publications were included that were indexed in Journal Citation Reports published by Thomson-Reuters. Publications were analysed for their year-wise, city-wise and university-wise distributions. Descriptive statistical analyses were performed by generating Box and Whisker plots. All illustrations were generated by using MS Office 2008 and/or Minitab for Macintosh.

Results: From 2007-2010, the total number of publications from all medical universities or universities with affiliated medical colleges in Pakistan was 5886. Of the total 26 such universities in Pakistan, only 20 had publications in 2007, 21 in 2008, 23 in 2009 and 24 in 2010. The total number of publications from all such universities in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 was 875, 1504, 1563 and 1944 respectively. The highest number of publications (n=1447, 24.58%) was produced by the University of Karachi. With respect to city-wise distribution of publications, Karachi produced the highest number of papers, (n=3108, 52.86%).

Conclusion: The number of research publications by Pakistani institutions imparting medical education is way below the international standards. The present study is the first of its kind, highlighting the significance of published medical research.