The Impact of a Scholarly Concentration Program on Student Interest in Career-Long Research: A Longitudinal Study.

PURPOSE: Concerns remain regarding the future of the physician-scientist workforce. One goal of scholarly concentration (SC) programs is to give students skills and motivation to pursue research careers. The authors describe SC and student variables that affect students' career plans. METHOD: Medical students graduating from the University of Chicago SC program in 2014 and 2015 were studied. The authors measured change in interest in career-long research from matriculation to graduation, and used ordinal logistic regression to determine whether program satisfaction, dissemination of scholarship, publication, and gender were associated with increased interest in a research career. RESULTS: Among students with low baseline interest in career-long research, a one-point-higher program satisfaction was associated with 2.49 (95% CI 1.36-4.57, P = .003) odds of a one-point-increased interest in a research career from matriculation to graduation. Among students with high baseline interest in career-long research, both publication (OR 5.46, 95% CI 1.40-21.32, P = .02) and female gender (OR 4.83, 95% CI 1.11-21.04, P = .04) were associated with increased odds of a one-point-increased interest in career-long research. CONCLUSIONS: The impact of an SC program on change in career plans during medical school was analyzed. Program satisfaction, publication, and female gender were associated with increased intent to participate in career-long research depending on baseline interest in career-long research. Two ways to bolster the physician-scientist workforce are to improve satisfaction with existing SC programs and to formally support student publication. Future work to track outcomes of SC program graduates is warranted.

Goals of medical students participating in scholarly concentration programmes.

OBJECTIVES: Scholarly concentration (SC) programmes are increasingly common in medical school curricula, fostering student participation in mentored research. Endpoints including publication rates and impact on career path have been reported, but student goals have not been described. We describe how career plans and gender impact the importance of students' SC-related goals. Understanding student goals may enhance mentorship of professional development and self-directed learning skills. METHODS: First-year students at two US medical schools were surveyed. Students reported intentions regarding career-long research and specialty interests. Using a 5-point scale, students assigned importance to 13 goals (eight skill-related goals, four accomplishment-related goals and mentorship), Composite scores for skills-related and accomplishment-related goals were used for analysis. Regression analyses, controlling for school, were used to determine whether intentions regarding career-long research, interest in highly competitive residency or gender were associated with increased importance of different goals. RESULTS: We surveyed 288 first-year medical students and received 186 responses (64.6% response rate). Compared with their peers, students interested in career-long research placed more importance on both skill-related goals (beta coefficient, 1.87; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03-2.71; p < 0.001) and accomplishment-related goals (odds ratio [OR], 1.71; 95% CI, 1.09-2.69; p = 0.02). By contrast, compared with their peers, students interested in highly competitive specialties placed more importance only on accomplishment-related goals (OR, 2.18; 95% CI, 1.15-4.11; p = 0.02). Compared with men, women placed more importance on mentorship (OR, 2.47; 95% CI, 1.23-4.97; p = 0.01) and were less likely to be interested in highly competitive residencies (39.4% versus 54.9%, p = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS: Gender and career plans are associated with importance of SC-related goals in the first year of medical school. This knowledge enables faculty to promote students' appreciation of important learning goals in the setting of student research, which may help students engage in self-directed learning across their medical education.