A Point System as Catalyst to Increase Resident Scholarship: An MPCRN Study

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Family Medicine Research
• Graduate Medical Education

Background:

• Medical educators face challenges in promoting resident scholarly activity.
• Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) mandates increased emphasis on scholarly output.
• Residency programs must adapt and evaluate their processes for scholarly activity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the impact of a scholarly activity point system on resident scholarly productivity.
• To determine the effectiveness of a point system in multiple family medicine residency programs.

Main Methods:

• Five military family medicine residencies compared resident outcomes over a 4-year period (2 years pre- and 2 years post-implementation).
• Key outcome measures included first-author and any-author peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and Institutional Review Board (IRB)-approved protocols where residents were principal investigators or involved in any role.

Main Results:

• Four out of five programs showed significant increases in scholarly productivity across multiple metrics.
• The program with a strong baseline culture of inquiry did not demonstrate a similar increase.

Conclusions:

• A scholarly activity point system is linked to increased resident scholarly production in family medicine.
• The system appears most beneficial for programs starting with lower levels of scholarly activity.
• Point systems can be a valuable component of scholarly activity curricula in residency programs.