A departmental experience in promoting oral and poster presentations

Residency programs must demonstrate resident and faculty involvement in scholarly activity. One acceptable method is delivering presentations at scientific meetings.

A prospective database and retrospective search of all prior presentations.

Prior to 1997, residents made less than 5 presentations per year. After inception, they made an average of 35, increasing from 12 in 1998 to 80 in 2006; 180 submissions were presented 335 times (1.9 presentations per unique work). The majority were based on case reports, whereas 11% were research. In the last 2 years, 36% were accepted as oral presentations, the remaining as posters. Total program cost for 2006 was $39,184 ($490 per presentation).

The program has succeeded in increasing scholarly activity for faculty and residents at an acceptable cost. Most secondary goals were also met, including increasing the number of departmental publications.