Trainee Participation in an Annual Research Day Is Associated With Future Publications

Abstract

Background: Residency training programs seek to train future clinicians but also to stimulate scholarly interests and develop future academic physicians. Purpose: The goal was to determine if participation in an annual departmental research day is associated with future academic productivity among pediatrics trainees. Methods: This retrospective cohort study enrolled all residents and fellows at our institution between 1985 and 2007. In 1985, our department began an annual Evening of Scholarship (EOS) at which both residents and fellows could voluntarily present submitted research and other scholarly work. We compared future academic productivity, measured by the number of future publications, between EOS participants and nonparticipants after controlling for confounding variables. Results: There were 526 unique participants included (residents n= 304 and fellows n= 222). Participants in EOS (n= 232) were more likely than nonparticipants to be male (53% vs. 30%, respectively, p< .001), be a fellow (63% vs. 27%, p< .001), and have published previously (31% vs. 15%, p< .001). Participants in EOS were more likely than nonparticipants to have publications after graduation (69% vs. 34%, p< .001), and this persisted in multivariate analysis (odds ratio [OR] for future publication in participants compared to nonparticipants equals 3.7, 95% CI = 2.5–5.6) In addition, participants had significantly more publications after training (Mdn = 2, interquartile range [IQR] 0–9.75, vs. 0, IQR 0–1, p< .001). The association was stronger for resident trainees (test of interaction, p= .01, OR_residents = 4.7, 95% CI = 2.7–8.3, OR_fellows = 1.6, 95% CI = 0.82–3.0). Conclusions: An annual research day was significantly and strongly associated with future publications among resident trainees.

Acknowledgments

This project was supported by Dr. A. Z. Steiner's salary support through the University of North Carolina WRHR 5K12 HD050113-02 (NICHD). The National Institutes of Health had no role in the design or conduct of the study or in the preparation of the manuscript. None of the authors report potential financial conflicts of interest. Michael J. Steiner and Anne Z. Steiner had full access to all the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. We thank Wallace D. Brown and Eliana M. Perrin for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. In addition, we acknowledge Johnny Carson for his manuscript review and dedication to the Evening of Scholarship over the past 20 years. Finally, Alan Stiles and Thomas Boat have been critical to the development and support of the Evening of Scholarship since its inception.