Publication trends among internal medicine residents, fellows, and graduates and its relationship to future academic achievement

Background: Medical research is essential for establishing evidence-based care and furthering clinical practice knowledge for the success of physicians. For example, research is considered a scholarly activity by the American College of Graduate Medical Education and is a requirement during residency (1). Furthermore, research is used as a tool to measure academic success given that it allows for a qualitative measure for residency and fellowship applications. Publication trends among internal medicine have previously been studied (2,3); however, our follow-up study also adjusts for gender when comparing research success and outcomes. Our primary objective is to assess the influence that research in medical school has on residency success by analyzing fellowship placement, h-index scores, and continued research success measured by publications.Methods: Using Doximity residency navigator, we reviewed internal medicine graduates from 50 randomly sampled residency programs. From each included program, publicly available graduate records were obtained and included for identification of each graduate. After extracting our list of graduates, each graduate was searched on SCOPUS for degree, gender, fellowship pursued, h-index, academics pursued, and publications. Microsoft Excel and Stata 15.1 were used for all statistical analysis functions.Results: Our initial search of internal medicine residency programs yielded 530 programs of which we randomly sampled 50 programs. Among the 50 programs, 328 graduates were identified and included in our analysis. Over half of our sample were males with the most common fellowship pursued being cardiology (Table 1). Graduates with first authorship publication prior to residency were more likely to pursue a fellowship or go into academic medicine (Table 2).Conclusion: Our study found that graduates with primary author publication before residency were more likely to go into academic medicine or pursue a fellowship after internal medicine residency. Given that Internal medicine provides several options following residency, research provides a qualitative measure of academic performance and future success. Our study highlighted no difference among gender and future career success. These results are comparable to other studies (2,3). In conclusion, total publications, first author publication, and h-index scores independently indicate a significant positive correlation in pursuing a fellowship or academic medicine after residency

Is the research you value a waste of money?

Introduction and Hypothesis: Eighty-five percent of health research may be wasted, resulting in $170 billion annually in wasteful research spending worldwide. Given the increased use of randomized trials and their influence on medicine, one method to combat research waste is to conduct RCTs only when a systematic review (SR) suggests more data are needed or when no previous systematic reviews are identified. Here, we hypothesize SRs would be rarely cited as justification for conducting RCTs.Methods: We analysed RCTs published between 2016 and 2018 in New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and Journal of the American Medical Association. We performed duplicate and independent data extraction to ensure the accuracy and validity of our data. For each trial, we extracted whether SRs were cited as justification for conducting the clinical trial.Results: Our search retrieved 665 records, of which 628 were included. Overall, 706 SR's were cited in these 628 RCTs; of which, 318 were referenced in the introduction, 82 in the methods, and 306 in the discussion. 49 SRs were cited verbatim as justification for conducting the trial. RCTs published in Lancet were more likely to cite a SR as justification for conducting the trial.Conclusion: Very few clinical trials cite systematic reviews as the basis for undertaking the trial. We believe trialists should be required to present relevant systematic reviews to an ethics or peer review committee demonstrating an unmet need prior to initiating a trial. Eliminating research waste is both a scientific and ethical responsibility

Publication trends among general surgery residents, fellows, and graduates and its relationship to future academic achievement

Background: Medical research is considered a core component of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) residency programs. Through conducting, evaluating, and applying medical research, physicians aim to improve the quality of care for patients and better health outcomes. Our study aims to determine associated factors that influence publication rates before, during, and after general surgery residency.Methods: Our cross-sectional study included a random sample of 50 general surgery residency programs. Using each program's online website, publicly available records were obtained for residents that graduated in 2013-2015. Previous publication information, h-index, medical degree, and fellowship pursued were obtained for each graduate by searching Scopus and PubMed. Microsoft Excel functions were used to calculate descriptive statistics and 95% confidence intervals.Results: Of the 30 included programs, 68 residents were analyzed for sample characteristics and publication rates. Among the 68 graduated residents, the majority, 31 (45.6%) had between 1-5 publications. Of the 68 residents, most pursued a fellowship in Minimally Invasive Surgery (14/68; 20.6%). Most research outcomes reported were during residency with a total of 150 (of 321; 46.7%) publications. Of the 321 total publications recorded, the lowest reported median was before residency.Conclusions: Our study indicated that research outcomes were more prevalent during residency when compared to research outcomes before and after residency. Given that research remains a core part of ACGME general surgery residency programs, it is important for residents to continue progressing their scientific knowledge through continued research. In conclusion, publication rates remain the highest during residency

Publication and research trends among neurological residents

Research is a critical aspect of residency training, but many programs lack a robust research component in their curriculum. Research publications are one way that physicians can advance their career in academic medicine, and the number of publications is often used as a criterion for determining suitable fellowship applicants. In this study, we evaluate the relationship between publications during and after residency in the field of neurology as well as analyze the relationship between number of publications and characteristics such as gender and career path. We randomly selected 50 ACGME Neurology residency programs from across the United States and recorded the number of publications, h-index, gender, fellowship choice, and career path for each graduate between 2013-2015. Each publication was sorted into time frames before residency, during residency, and after residency. The study included a total of 379 neurology residents from 25 different residency programs. Residents who pursued academic medicine had a significantly higher mean total publications (M = 10.1, SD 16.4) than those who pursued private practice (M = 4.2, SD 9.0) (t377 =-4.5, p <0.000). The mean total publications for male residents (M = 8.6, SD 16.5) was significantly higher than female residents (M = 4.1, SD 5.6) (t377 =-3.6, p <0.0002). Pearson correlation also revealed a correlation between publications during residency and publications after residency, with a Pearson product moment correlation of 0.61. The positive correlation between number of publications during residency and publications after residency, demonstrates the importance of implementing strong research principles and practice in a residency's curriculum. We also report a higher number of mean total publications by those who pursued academic medicine than those who pursued private practice. In addition, the results show an underrepresentation of females in neurology research, indicating a need to encourage more females to engage in neurology research and possibly STEM fields in general at an earlier stage in their educational career