Impact of a Scholarly Concentrations Program on Residents’ Scholarly Output and Professional Identity Formation

Background Scholarly activity during residency helps build residents' careers, establishes professional identity, supports the use of evidence-based medicine, and encourages the growth of future physician scientists. Furthermore, scholarship in residency is an important Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requirement. Nonetheless, barriers to scholarship, such as limited time and challenges in finding mentorship, persist. To overcome these barriers, we implemented and evaluated a pediatric residency Scholarly Concentrations (SC) program, focusing on professional identity formation (PIF) and scholarly output. The SC program, which began in 2012, provides a longitudinal curriculum and faculty mentorship and support for residents' scholarly projects. Residents choose among one of the following six areas of scholarly focus: basic science and translational research, clinical research, global health, community engagement and advocacy, quality and performance improvement, and medical education. Methodology In summer 2021, we emailed an anonymous electronic survey to all 175 pediatric resident alumni who completed the program and graduated between 2015 and 2020, asking questions related to key outcomes such as the impact of the SC program on professional identity and scholarly outputs during and since residency. Data were analyzed descriptively and with chi-squared tests. Results In total, 91 (52%) alumni completed the survey. Impact on PIF was high, with 69.2% (n = 63) reporting moderate/great impact on their careers, and 67.4% (n = 60) identifying research as important to their professional identity. Of respondents who were fellows or in university-based clinical practice at the time of the survey, 80.3% (n = 49) reported a moderate/great impact of the SC program on their career compared to 44.0% (n = 11) who were in non-university clinical settings (p = 0.03). Residency scholarship often translated to first-author articles, with 44.0% (n = 40) reported having first authorship on a manuscript related to their residency research. Post-residency, 76.9% (n = 70) of participants reported taking part in at least one type of research. Conclusions Our findings suggest that participation in the SC program was correlated with residents' robust scholarly outputs, professional identities, and careers.