Is past academic productivity predictive of radiology resident academic productivity?

The authors performed this study to determine whether academic productivity in college and medical school is predictive of the number of publications produced during radiology residency.

The authors reviewed the records of 73 radiology residents who completed their residency from 1990 to 2000. Academic productivity during college, medical school, and radiology residency, other postgraduate degrees, and past careers other than radiology were tabulated. The personal essay attached to the residency application was reviewed for any stated academic interest. Residents were classified as being either previously productive or previously unproductive. Publication rates during residency and immediately after residency were compared for the two groups. For the productive residents, a correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between past frequency of publication and type of previous activity. Least-squares regression analysis was used to investigate the relationship between preresidency academic productivity, advanced degrees, stated interest in academics, and other careers and radiology residency publications.

There was no statistically significant difference in the number of articles published by those residents who were active and those who were not active before residency (P = .21). Only authorship of papers as an undergraduate was weakly predictive of residency publication.

These selected measures of academic productivity as an undergraduate and during medical school are not helpful for predicting publication during residency. There was no difference in publication potential between those residents who were academically productive in the past and those who were not.