A Curriculum to Increase Resident Scholarly Activity

Scholarly activity (SA) is an Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requirement for family medicine residents. Engaging residents in scholarly activity can be challenging. Naval Hospital Jacksonville Family Medicine Residency (NHJ) pioneered a curriculum that led to a dramatic, sustained increase in resident SA. We sought to implement the curriculum in other family medicine residency programs.

The curriculum was implemented at two additional family medicine residencies. Three curricular interventions were identified: a 3-hour case report workshop, a written practical guide to scholarly activity, and a resident peer research leader. One program implemented all three elements. The other implemented the workshop and written guide, but did not identify a resident peer leader. SA was measured using the annual ACGME program director report and compared the intervention year to the previous 3 years of SA using a 2-sample test for equality of proportions with continuity correction. We used pre- and postintervention surveys to evaluate resident attitudes about SA.

The program implementing all three interventions increased residents' conference presentation 302% (n=34, P<.001). The program that did not identify a resident peer leader had no significant change in SA as reported to the ACGME.

The curriculum was implemented in two additional residencies with promising results. We recommend further implementation across multiple sites to determine the extent to which the results are generalizable.