Background/Aims: Abstract presentations at scientific meetings provide an opportunity to communicate the results of important research. Unfortunately, many abstracts are not published as full manuscripts. At the 73rd scientific meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in 2008, we evaluated factors associated with the publication of abstracts as manuscripts up to 6.5 years after presentation. Methods: All abstracts, excluding case reports, presented at the meeting were evaluated. We systematically searched for matching manuscripts indexed in PubMed or EMBASE up to May 2015. We used logistic regression models to determine factors associated with manuscript publication and calculated ORs and 95% CIs. Results: Of the included 791 abstracts, 249 (31.5%) were published as manuscripts within 6.5 years. Oral presentation (OR 2.11; 95% CI 1.15-3.87), multicenter studies (OR 2.67; 95% CI 1.44-4.95), abstracts by University-based authors (OR 1.80; 95% CI 1.20-2.72), and funded research (OR 2.15; 95% CI 1.43-3.23) were more likely to be published. Winning an award at the meeting was not associated with manuscript publication (OR 1.09; 95% CI 0.57-2.06). Conclusions: There is an urgent need to enhance the methods of disseminating scientific knowledge through publication of abstracts presented at gastroenterology meetings as manuscripts. Mentors should endeavor to encourage their mentees to complete this final stage of their scholarly activities.

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Introduction Junior doctor changeover has been perceived as a period of increased risk to patients. However, there is a paucity of contemporary evidence into this ‘Changeover Effect’. The aim of this study was to evaluate the presence of an adverse patient effect during periods of junior doctor changeover. Method Data were requested on all patients aged 18 years or older admitted acutely under General Surgery in the North England between 2005-16. This included patient characteristics, diagnoses, co-morbidities, procedure codes, mortality and length of stay. Patients were included in the study if they were admitted during the ‘changeover week’; defined as the first day of the changeover followed by the six subsequent days. For junior trainees (FY1-CT2), this is the first Wednesday of August, December and April each year. For higher surgical trainees (ST3-8) the first Wednesday and October. Another week, four weeks prior, was chosen as a historical comparator. Results 61714 patients were included in this study. Patient characteristics did not vary between the cohorts. There was no difference in 30-day mortality between changeover and non-changeover groups (2.5% vs. 2.6%, p = 0.280) or length of stay (5.3 vs 5.2, p = 0.613). Changeover week was not a predictor of increased mortality (OR 1.06, p = 0.302) following multivariate adjustment. Further analysis of the first junior and higher specialty trainee periods, August and October respectively, showed no significant difference for measured outcomes. Conclusions This retrospective cohort study provides contemporary evidence that the ‘changeover effect’ does not exist in acute general surgical admissions in the UK.