REHABILITATION RESIDENT ACADEMIC PRODUCTIVITY - REPORT ON 1993 GRADUATES

A survey was designed to explore the relationship among elective time (ET), residency research requirement (RR), mandatory research rotation (MR), and academic productivity for the 1993 graduating residency class. Sixty-seven of the 75 rehabilitation residency program directors listed in the 1993 Directory of Graduate Medical Education Programs responded (89% response rate). Data from 60 programs, representing 283 graduating residents, were analyzed (80% usable response rate). A resident was operationally defined as ''active'' if that individual submitted either articles (SART) for publication or abstracts (SABS) for oral/poster presentation during the training years; residents with accepted articles (AART) and/or abstracts (AABS) were defined as ''productive.'' Odds ratios and chi2 statistics were calculated for each study risk variable (ET, RR, MR) and the corresponding outcome variables (SART, SABS, AART, AABS). One hundred and fifty-nine residents (56%) submitted abstracts; 86 (30%) submitted articles; of these residents, 134 (47%) and 54 (19%) had their work accepted, respectively. Research was required by 26/60 (43%) programs. Research elective time was available in 41/60 (68%) programs; only 44/203 (22%) residents used this time for research. Residents who had research required had a 1.9 times greater likelihood of submitting both abstracts (P < 0.008) and articles (P < 0.014). No other study relationship was found to be significant. The study results suggest that implementing a research requirement in the residency training curriculum may lead to an increase in resident research activity.