[Publication of pediatric medical dissertations in France]

A medical dissertation is mandatory during medical studies in France. Often these dissertations are only considered an old-fashioned tradition but nonetheless require scientific research. According to recent publications, only 10% are secondarily published; however, there are no specific studies on pediatric medical dissertations.

For all medical dissertations from students assigned to pediatrics in 2003, a subsequent publication was searched for on Pubmed and Google Scholar. When such a publication was found, data on the student's rank, the impact factor (IF), the language of publication, and the number of citations were retrieved.

For students assigned to pediatrics in 2003, 27.9% of the 172 medical theses were published, with a mean delay of 2.21 years. French was the language in 29%, and the mean IF was 2.3. There was no statistical association between student sex, age, university, size of the medical dissertation and publication.

More than 25% of the pediatric medical dissertations are published. According to available data, this is a good rate but nonetheless still low. We found no clear factor associated with publication.

Only a small fraction of pediatric medical dissertations are published.