Medical Degree Disparity Among Authors of Original Research in Pediatric Journals: A Four-Year Follow-Up

Scholarly activity is a major component of residency training and the accreditation process for graduate medical education. In 2014, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine announced a single accreditation system with the transition beginning July 1, 2015. Previous data before the transition had shown that osteopathic physicians rarely published original research in three high-impact pediatric journals. The objective of this study is to determine if there is a degree disparity between osteopathic and allopathic physicians among authors who publish original research manuscripts in three high-impact pediatric journals after the beginning of the transition to a single graduate medical education accreditation system.  Methods: Degree designation for the first and senior authors of original research manuscripts was reviewed for the Journal of Pediatrics (J Pediatr), Pediatrics, and JAMA Pediatrics (JAMA Pediatr) for the years 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. Inter-rater reliability was calculated by the kappa coefficient, and data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and simple linear regression.  Results: A total of 3,252 manuscripts and 4,068 authors were reviewed with 0.98% of all authors being osteopathic physicians. A total of 1.65% of first authors and 0.41% of senior authors were osteopathic physicians. For those with a dual degree, a total of 1.03% of first, and 0.41% of senior authors were osteopathic physicians. No statistical trend could be established for increased first, senior, dual-degree first, or dual-degree senior osteopathic physician authorship.

Osteopathic physicians continue to be underrepresented as first and senior authors in original publications in the three high-impact pediatric journals as compared to their allopathic counterparts.