Exploring the publishing patterns and journal use of Graduate Medical Education (GME) residents in a large medical school.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Graduate Medical Education (GME) residents are required to meet ACGME-mandated scholarship requirements.(1) Often those residents are encouraged to publish the resulting scholarship, and librarians are asked for assistance during that process. We will investigate two things: the publication patterns of residents and the journals they cite in their publications. By examining publication patterns, we will learn which types of articles residents typically author, in which departments trainees publish, etc. This knowledge will help librarians better target guidance provided to residents. Likewise, the analysis of the cited journals will inform collection development efforts that support resident publishing. METHODS: This is a descriptive ‘baseline’ exploratory study. 266 residents who completed their training between July 1, 2018, and June 30, 2019, were searched in Scopus. Included in this analysis are case study/case series, original research, or review articles authored by residents and with our institution listed by any author. Articles were limited to publication dates that were one year after the trainee start date and 18 months after the trainee termination date. Excluded were published curriculum, editorials, conference papers, and conference posters. Articles were coded separately by two different authors (case study/case series, original research, or review articles). When there were disagreements, a third author made the final decision. The analysis included journals in which GME residents published, number of publications, number of residents publishing, number of publications cited, distribution of publishing among programs, and journals cited within publications. RESULTS: Out of the residents matriculating 2018-19, 34% published at least one article, and they published in 188 different journals. 291 total articles were published by residents, and of those articles, the majority, 60%, were original research. 41% of first authors were GME residents. Of resident program areas, Surgery had the highest number of publications and citations. When analyzing publications per resident, Urology and Otolaryngology tied for first with 8.33. Otolaryngology had the most citations per resident with 110.7. There were 8073 cited references in 2288 journals. The top 20 journals were cited more than 50 times. CONCLUSIONS: GME residents publish in a wide variety of journals. Libraries might provide guidance about publishing original research to support their scholarly publishing. Further, libraries can evaluate if their collections meet their residents’ research needs by examining journals cited in residents’ publications. The limitations of this study are that the analysis included one institution and one year of matriculating residents. Also, inter-program comparisons did not account for differing time-in-residency. Next steps are to analyze the inter-program data by time-in-residency, use the Chi-Squared test to look for relationships, and analyze journal data by program area. Eventually, other GME trainees’ publications will be analyzed. The analysis will then expand to trainees from multiple years for a more complete picture of GME trainee publishing. 1. Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education. ACGME Common Program Requirements (Residency). July 1, 2022. https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/programrequirements/cprresidency_2022v3.pdf