A Multifaceted Research Engagement Program Improved the Academic Productivity of General Surgery Residents

Abstract

Objective: Surgeon-scientists are becoming increasingly scarce, and therefore, engaging residents in research during their training is important. We evaluated whether a multifaceted research engagement program was associated with increased academic productivity of general surgery residents.

Design: Our research engagement program has 4 pillars: A research requirement, a structured research curriculum, infrastructure to support residents' research, and an annual resident research day to highlight trainees' work. We compared the number of manuscripts published per chief resident during the 4 years before and after program implementation in 2013. We performed subgroup analyses to examine productivity of research track residents and clinical track residents.

Setting: A general surgery residency program in an academic setting.

Participants: The participants were 57 general surgery residents (23 research track and 34 clinical track) graduating between 2010 and 2017.

Results: There was a significant increase in overall research productivity, with 28 chief residents publishing an average of 2.3 ± 1.0 manuscripts before and 29 chief residents publishing an average of 8.5 ± 3.2 manuscripts after program implementation (p = 0.01). Research track residents had a nonsignificant increase in publications from an average of 6.3 ± 3.1 before to 15.4 ± 8.9 after the new program (p = 0.10). Clinical track residents had a significant increase in publications from a median of 0.9 (interquartile range: 0.5, 1.0) before to a median of 1.3 (interquartile range: 1.2, 8.6) after the new program (p = 0.03).

Conclusions: Implementation of a multifaceted research engagement program was associated with a significant increase in manuscripts published by general surgery residents, including clinical track residents. Components of our program may be of use to other programs looking to improve resident research engagement and productivity.

Keywords: General surgery residency; Research curriculum; Research program; Research requirement; Resident education.