Publication Trends of Integrated Plastic Surgery Residency Applicants Without Numeric Step 1 Scores

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Plastic Surgery Residency Admissions
• Bibliometrics

Background:

• The United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 score transitioned to a pass/fail system.
• The impact of this score shift on integrated plastic surgery residency applications is not well understood.
• The Class of 2024 is the first to apply to integrated plastic surgery residency programs without a numeric Step 1 score.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the bibliometric data of integrated plastic surgery residents.
• To assess the impact of the USMLE Step 1 pass/fail transition on publication requirements for residency applicants.
• To identify key publication metrics influencing plastic surgery residency selection.

Main Methods:

• Bibliometric analysis of 555 integrated plastic surgery residents from three recent graduating cohorts.
• Data collection included publication count, authorship status, article type, and journal quality.
• Analysis focused on trends before and after the Step 1 score change.

Main Results:

• Average publication count remained consistent (7.33).
• Decline in applicants matching without any publications (16.9% to 9.3%) and without a first-author publication (37.1% to 29.5%).
• Increased emphasis on first-author and plastic surgery-specific publications, with a steady annual drop in applicants lacking these.

Conclusions:

• The USMLE Step 1 pass/fail transition has not altered overall publication numbers but has heightened the significance of first-author and plastic surgery-specific publications.
• Residency directors may increasingly rely on these publication metrics as selection criteria.
• Having at least one publication has become a more critical factor for integrated plastic surgery residency applicants.