A retrospective analysis of medical student authorship in highest impact radiology journal publications

To assess medical student authorship in radiology research, focusing on the prevalence and impact of student articles, demographic trends, and potential barriers and opportunities for involvement.

We retrospectively assessed original research and review papers from 2018 to 2022 in the top five radiology journals based on their 2022 Impact Factor. Three reviewers manually validated and classified articles by medical student (MS) and non-MS authorship. Data collected included publication and authorship metrics. Thematic analysis of articles was performed from keywords and SCOPUS topic clusters. Significant associations were identified using chi-squared and two-tailed z-tests.

Of the 2533 publications from all five journals, only 0.47 % were MS-authored, of which 83.3 % had a Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) > 1. Of the 19 MS authors, 68.42 % had prior publications, with the same proportion holding prior first authorship. Female students averaged a higher FWCI (2.47 ± 2.31) but comprised only 26.32 % of all students. Only 16.67 % of MS articles had a female senior author (SA). This was consistent in non-MS articles, with females representing 19.9 % to 25.2 % of SAs across all journals. Of the 2521 non-MS articles, 92 % were classified into themes, revealing that 47.89 % of publications primarily focused on machine learning, while another 42.26 % incorporated some machine learning concepts.

Compared to non-medical student publications in radiology, those by medical students were disproportionately limited but impactful. Both demographic and academic factors hinder student engagement in publishing. Hence promoting, supporting, and sponsoring student involvement in research is pivotal for the discipline.