Publication count of matched dermatology applicants reported in literature: a systematic review

Competitive medical residency specialties, such as Dermatology, have historically placed lofty demands on applicants. We focus on the seemingly increasing demands on applicants to publish, as well as discuss and quantify the delivery of these expectations in the literature. The objective of this article is to systematically review evidence regarding the number of publications possessed by successful applicants to a dermatology residency program. We conducted a systematic review of the literature published before or by April 2023, with no lower limit regarding the publishing date using PubMed, Google Scholar, and OVID. Our summary included 41 publications that specifically cited the number of publications by National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) applicants successfully matching to US dermatology programs. We extracted additional applicant details (demographics, publication type) as available. We found two major categories of cumulative publications reported in the literature: NRMP scholarly works and peer-reviewed indexed publications. Summarizing reports from 21 papers between 2011 and 2022, NRMP showed the overall mean amongst matched applicants to be 14.77 publications, with an upward trend over time. The mean was 3.23 peer-reviewed indexed publications (PIPs) for successful dermatology applicants amongst 11 articles in the literature. Amongst matched dermatology applicants, an average of 3 PIPs is markedly lower than the inflated average count of 15 NRMP scholarly works (which includes non-published research) that is often reported in the literature and national statistics. The distinction between these values must be recognized in the literature, as well as communicated to forthcoming dermatology applicants.