Publication rates of annual Research Day abstracts in peer-reviewed journals by residents and fellows at a community-based institution – A 10-year review of data and analysis

INTRODUCTION: Research and publications are becoming increasingly important for residents who want to match into competitive fellowship training programs and fellows looking to optimize career opportunities. Institutional Research Days provide trainees the opportunity to gain presentation experience and feedback about their studies. We evaluated all abstracts that were presented at Ascension Providence Hospital (APH) during Research Day over a 10-year period to determine publication rates of manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. METHODS: Research abstracts presented by both residents and fellows during Research Days at APH from 2009 to 2018 were reviewed. Abstracts were classified by type of project, type of presentation, trainee, winners and non-winners, and training program. Winners were defined as abstracts which won first, second and third place awards. Publication of manuscripts was evaluated by searching PubMed and Google Scholar. Fisher's Exact test was used to analyze categorical data and Student's t-test was used to analyze continuous data; p < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: A total of 491 research and case report abstracts were presented by residents and fellows during Research Day over 10 years. For residents, 346 abstracts were presented; 25% (n = 85) were winners. The majority (51%) of winning abstracts were published, but only 26% of non-winning abstracts were published (p < 0.0001). More of both winning research oral (65%) and poster abstracts (61%) were published than non-winning oral (41%) and poster abstracts (22%, p = 0.02 and p = 0.0001, respectively), but publication rates for case reports were similar. The vast majority of published winning oral (88%) and poster abstracts (74%) came from the surgical programs. Fellows presented 145 abstracts; 30% (n = 43) were winners. A slightly higher percentage of winning abstracts (42%) were published compared to non-winning abstracts (32%, p = 0.3). Unlike the residents, the fellows had no significant publication rate differences between winning and non-winning research oral, research poster or case report abstracts, or between medical and non-medical subspecialties. CONCLUSIONS: Despite their award-winning presentations, residents and fellows published less than half of these projects and less than a third of non-award-winning projects. However, most publications came from the surgical specialties, indicating the colleagues in the medical specialties were not publishing. Further data are needed to identify factors that can improve a trainee's chances of being published in a peer-reviewed journal.