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 language | English |
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Article number | A5133 |
Journal | Danish Medical Journal |
Volume | 62 |
Issue number | 9 |
Number of pages | 5 |
ISSN | 1603-9629 |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |