Publication of Medical Student Summer Research: A Multi-institutional Analysis

Summer research programs can support medical students’ exposure to research and scholarly activity, and strengthen their applications for residency positions, particularly if students are able to generate peer-reviewed publications resulting from their summer experience. We aimed to estimate the rate of publication among medical student summer projects and identify any predictors of projects’ progress to publication.

Projects were identified from abstract books published by five medical schools’ summer research programs for rising second-year medical students. Resulting publications were queried in PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Abstract characteristics were correlated with publication outcomes using bivariate analysis.

We identified 158 eligible abstracts representing medical student summer research projects. Overall, 34% resulted in publication, but Kaplan–Meier analysis found that only one-quarter were published within 3 years of presentation (i.e., around the time of graduation from medical school). No abstract characteristics were associated with odds of any vs. no publication, and only disclosure of project funding was (negatively) associated with the hazard of publication.

Summer research programs fostering medical students’ engagement in research may not directly lead to the publication of work completed during the program for most participants. Tracking the likelihood of publishing summer project results can help medical schools effectively advise students on how to maximize the utility of their participation in extracurricular research, without leading to burnout or disenchantment. Further research is needed to understand how connecting students and mentors with longitudinal support after the end of a summer program might facilitate project completion and publication.