Early immersion in a dedicated one-month Anesthesiology Professional Practice rotation for Post-Graduate Year-1 interns is associated with an increase in scholarly activity during residency.

ABSTRACT

STUDY OBJECTIVE: Despite the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education scholarly activity requirement, incorporating education on scholarly fundamentals into residency is challenging. We designed and implemented an academic non-clinical rotation for Post Graduate Year-1 (PGY-1) interns and its association with subsequent resident scholarly productivity was determined. We hypothesized that early immersion in such a rotation would be associated with increased scholarly activity during residency. DESIGN: Retrospective educational comparative study, of two cohorts of anesthesiology residents in the graduating classes of 2015-2020. SETTING: Large anesthesiology residency program at a U.S. academic medical center. INTERVENTION A one-month academic rotation titled Anesthesia Professional Practice for PGY-1 interns has been implemented since 2014. The rotation curriculum broadly covers important topics for scholarly projects and provides introductions to academic faculty and institutional resources. MEASUREMENTS The scholarly products (abstracts, publications, book chapters, research protocols, and grant applications) were quantified using Scholarly Activity Points, a previously described metric that accounts for significance and the resident's contribution. Total Scholarly Activity Points for each resident and number of publications prior to residency were determined for both cohorts. Segmented regression was employed with Scholarly Activity Points as the outcome; participation in the early immersion rotation and prior publications were used as input variables. MAIN RESULTS: Resident participation in the early immersion rotation was significantly associated with higher Scholarly Activity Points. The confounding variable of pre-residency publication count was not significantly correlated to this increase. CONCLUSIONS: Immersion in a one-month academic program during PGY-1 internship may contribute to increased scholarly productivity during residency.