Barriers to Scholarly Activity and Scholarship for Medical Students and Residents: Does Presence of an In-house Gastroenterology Fellowship Program Matter?: 1112

Introduction: In a publish-or-perish academic culture, it is vital to identify barriers that may hinder advancements in scholarly activity and journal publications. Barriers must be identified at the medical student stage and followed throughout residency and fellowship. Educational intervention must be tailored to training-level specific barrier elimination. We aimed to identify barriers to both scholarly activity and publication success among medical students and residents, analyzing any potential barrier discrepancies regarding training in a program with a GI fellowship in-house and direct exposure versus those without. Methods: IRB was obtained to administer a short, 17-question anonymous SurveyMonkey email to 19 participating academic institutions. Institutions were selected and categorized: large academic (5), small academic (5), osteopathic medical school (6), offshore medical school (3). 8 of the 19 institutions had a GI fellowship program in-house. The survey consisted of a series of barrier to scholarly activity and publication questions, and data was broken down by current stage in medical education (MS1 to PGY3), gender, degree, and institution type. All questions were Likert scale. Results: Responses from GI and non-GI fellowship institutions were nearly equal, with a total of ˜1200 responses. Definition of scholarly activity significantly varied by presence of GI fellowship (Fig 1). Programs without in-house GI faced a higher degree of barriers to scholarly activity: particularly finding a quality mentor, project ideas, funding, and initial support (Fig 2). In regards to carrying out a project to journal publication: programs without in-house GI lacked a scholarly activity program to assist them with publication tactics and monetary support, and simply did not provide recognition for those with success (Fig 3A). Time and statistical support remained significant barriers across all groups (Fig 3B). Regardless of GI fellowship presence, nearly 80% would agree or strongly agree with the statement “would pursue scholarly activity and publication if the majority of barriers were eliminated” and nearly 50% “would pursue full hypothesis-driven studies over case reports if given statistical support” (Fig 3B).Figure: Definition of Scholarly Activity Among Training Programs With GI Fellowship In-House vs. Those Without.Figure: Barriers Faced to Scholarly Activity Among Training Programs With GI Fellowship In-House vs. Those Without.Figure: 3A: Barriers Faced to Publication of Scholarly Activity Among Training Programs With GI Fellowship In-House vs. Those Without 3B: Response to Specific Statements Among Training Programs With GI Fellowship In-House vs. Those Without.Conclusion: Our next study will analyze the appearance and resolution of barriers as trainees progress from each medical student year through residency, and build an logical barrier-resolution prediction model for each level of training to optimize success.