Evaluation of the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research Medical Student Anesthesia Research Fellowship Program Participants’ Scholarly Activity and Career Choices

Abstract

Background The Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research Medical Student Anesthesia Research Fellowship (MSARF) program is an 8-week program that pairs medical students with anesthesiologists performing anesthesia-related research. This study evaluated the proportion of students who published an article from their work, as well as the percentage of students who entered anesthesiology residency programs. Methods A list of previous MSARF participants (2005 to 2012), site, and project information was obtained. Searches for publications were performed using PubMed. The primary outcome was the publication rate for MSARF projects. The MSARF abstract-to-publication ratio was compared with the percentage of abstracts presented at biomedical meetings that resulted in publication as estimated by a Cochrane review (44%). For students who had graduated from medical school, match lists from the students’ medical schools were reviewed for specialty choice. Results Forty-two percent of the 346 MSARF projects were subsequently published. There was no difference between the MSARF abstract-to-publication ratio and the publication rate of articles from abstracts presented at scientific meetings (P = 0.57). Thirty percent (n = 105; 95% CI, 25 to 35%) of all the MSARF students were authors on a publication. Fifty-eight percent of the students for whom residency match data (n = 255) were available matched into anesthesiology residencies (95% CI, 52 to 64%). Conclusions The MSARF program resulted in many students being included as a co-author on a published article; the majority of these students entered anesthesiology residency programs. Future research should determine whether the program has a long-term impact on the development of academic anesthesiologists.

The world’s contribution to the field of urology in 2015: A bibliometric study

“…Undoubtedly, such fellowships should affect research productivity especially that participants are fully dedicated and are not overwhelmed by any clinical demand. One study evaluated an anaesthesia research fellowship programme and revealed that 42% of the projects were published, and that 58% of the students were able to access an anaesthesiology residency programme [13].…”

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“…international study on summer research program amongst undergraduate reported 30% research articles being coauthored by medical students. 28 In another study, authors reviewed 25152 publications in the Medline-indexed journals affiliated to world"s top 10 universities and found out that 2537 (10.1%) articles contained atleast one undergraduate medical student as co-author. 29 A study (n=346) in a Sri Lanka medical university found that 57.6% students had shared their research finding in some scientific conference whereas only 1.73% had published in indexed journal as author.…”

Training the next generation of physician researchers – Vanderbilt Medical Scholars Program

“…Outcomes from these programs include 16% of medical fellows and 20% of Cloister graduates engaging in academic careers and 24% of medical fellows and 21% of Cloister receiving NIH awards [ 10 ]. Though these results may be discouraging, there is evidence to suggest that exposure to research experiences may increase the number of physician-scientists [ 11 – 14 ] and is associated with improved productivity and more informed trainees and has shown to result in an increased interest toward research [ 16 ]. A recent meta-analysis suggests medical students whom participate in research are over three times as likely to report interest in research engagement in their future careers, are six times as like to purse ‘academic careers’ as compared to their “untreated” peers and are twice as likely to academically outperform their peers [ 15 ].…”