Trainee participation in an annual research day is associated with future publications

Residency training programs seek to train future clinicians but also to stimulate scholarly interests and develop future academic physicians.

The goal was to determine if participation in an annual departmental research day is associated with future academic productivity among pediatrics trainees.

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.

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, ORresidents=4.7, 95% CI=2.7-8.3, ORfellows=1.6, 95% CI=0.82-3.0).

An annual research day was significantly and strongly associated with future publications among resident trainees.