The American College of Physicians' Resident Abstract Competition: success of U.S. military trainees

Research is a central aspect of internal medicine (IM) training, and accreditation organizations require that residency programs show that their residents participate in scholarly activity. To better understand the research productivity and the quality of research conducted by military IM trainees, we reviewed the records of the American College of Physicians' Resident Abstract Competition from 1995 to 1997. This national competition is prestigious, blindly judged, and highly selective. We found that although military residents account for less than 2% of all U.S. and Canadian IM trainees, they author more than 11% of the abstracts selected for presentation (p < 0.001). We conclude that military IM residents are disproportionately represented compared with their civilian peers in an objective, national competitive forum. This is consistent with the higher scores on in-service examinations and higher board-certification pass rates for military IM residents.