Extracurricular scientific production among medical students has increased in the past decade

Sofie Bech Andersen, Lauge Østergaard, Philip Loldrup Fosbøl, Emil Loldrup Fosbøl

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Abstract

Introduction: Undergraduate research among medical students is essential in the education of future physicians and scientists. This study aimed to evaluate the scientific yield of extracurricular undergraduate research among medical students. Methods: Medical students at the University of Copenha - gen who completed an extracurricular research year be - tween January 2004 and June 2013 were evaluated through a manual search in PubMed MEDLINE. The primary focus was the number of peer-reviewed, published articles. r esults: Of the 363 included students, 3.1% did their re - search in 2004-2005 compared with 46.5% in 2012-2013. After three years, 70.4% of the students had published a peer-reviewed article; and of all the 363 students, 36.5% had published as a first author. In total, 87.7% had a medi - cal specialty as their research area versus a surgical special - ty. Most students were involved in cardiology (14.1%). Car - diology was also associated with the greatest scientific yield with a median number of 0.8 publications per year after the students concluded their undergraduate research period. Three or more years after concluding their undergraduate research, 32.8% of the students had continued with re - search in the context of a PhD programme. c onclus I on: Overall, the number of medical students who engage in extracurricular research follows an increasing trend, and more than two-thirds of these students publish a peer-reviewed paper within three years. Cardiology was the most popular specialty and also the specialty with the greatest scientific yield. A third of the undergraduate re - search students continued doing research in the context of a PhD programme.
Original languageEnglish
Article numberA5133
JournalDanish Medical Journal
Volume62
Issue number9
Number of pages5
ISSN1603-9629
Publication statusPublished - 2015

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