Determinants of research productivity during postgraduate medical education: a structured review

Abstract

Background Although formal participation in research is an integral and often mandatory component of clinical training programs, resulting productivity is highly variable. The objective of this review was to identify determinants of successful research performance among graduate medical education trainees. Methods A structured review of the published literature was performed by searching PubMed, CINAHL, and EMBASE from inception through to 7 April, 2021. Articles examining graduate medical education trainee research productivity evidenced by publications in peer-reviewed journals were included. Results Eighty-five articles were included of which most (66; 78%) were reported from the USA or Canada (10; 12%). A wide range of disciplines were represented with the most common being general surgery, internal medicine, orthopedic surgery, and pediatrics. Themes (number of reports) included trainee characteristics (n = 24), project characteristics (n = 8), mentoring/supervision (n = 11), and programmatic aspects (n = 57). Although variable results were observed, research productivity tended to be higher with prior research experience, later years of training, male gender, and pursuit of a postgraduate degree. Few project related aspects of success were identified. Trainee publication was associated with mentors with higher rank, publication productivity, and supportive academic environments. Training programs with organised programs/curricula including protection of time for research were associated with increased productivity as were provision of incentives or rewards but not mandatory requirements. Conclusion This review identifies several trainee characteristics, project and mentor aspects, and programmatic aspects associated with increased productivity that may serve as a useful resource for trainees and graduate medical education training programs.

Introducing trainees to research using an online, asynchronous course

“…Early exposure to research [18] may also increase the number of physician scientists [17,19]. Furthermore, residency training programs with organized programs/curricula, including protected time for research, were associated with increased productivity [20].…”

How can healthcare organisations increase doctors’ research engagement? A scoping review

“…Improved quality of evidence is a key target for further work. While formal quality assessment was not conducted, the vast majority of studies which used a comparator were pre-post studies, a nding re ected in similar reviews (Laupland, Edwards & Dhanani, 2021;Li et al, 2022;Stevenson et al, 2021). This design is vulnerable to bias, especially as very few of these studies determined the trajectory of their outcome measure prior to introducing the intervention.…”

“…Recently, there have been increased attempts to synthesise this evidence to determine which strategies may be most effective. Previous reviews have focused on residents speci cally (Laupland, Edwards & Dhanani, 2021; Noble et al, 2018; Stevenson et al, 2021), were restricted by location, type of strategy or outcome measure (Laupland, Edwards & Dhanani, 2021; Li et al, 2022;Stevenson et al, 2021), or also included the effect of nonmodi able factors, such as gender and seniority (Laupland, Edwards & Dhanani, 2021). To date, no reviews have systematically summarised the evidence on strategies affecting research engagement of medical practitioners more broadly.…”

The Sources of Research Self-Efficacy in Postgraduate Nursing Students: A Qualitative Study

“…It is effective communication that will alleviate misunderstanding and disconnect between each other [ 36 ]. Findings on first-year nursing postgraduates and other medical postgraduates also showed that graduate students were more likely to achieve higher performance when they received high levels of support from their mentors [ 15 , 37 ]. First-year postgraduates expect mentors to take a leadership role, while second-year postgraduate students seem to be more willing to have continuous interaction and communication with their mentors.…”