Abstract
Purpose :
Ophthalmology is an increasingly competitive specialty with 790 applicants applying to 484 spots in the 2019 Match. Research is an important factor used to evaluate potential applicants. Each year, SF Match releases an ophthalmology match summary report detailing different metrics of applicants. However, this dataset fails to include research output. We aim to analyze the temporal trends in publication volume by medical students who successfully matched into ophthalmology.
Methods :
The Doximity Residency Navigator, sorted by reputation, was used to identify the top 30 ophthalmology residency programs in the United States. All residents from the class of 2022 and 2017 were identified from program websites; 158 residents were analyzed from the class of 2022 and 145 residents were analyzed from the class of 2017. Publication volume (first author, second author, ophthalmology journal, and total publications) from before September 15th of the application year for each resident was recorded using PubMed and Google Scholar. Using Welch’s t-test, publication volumes were statistically compared against all others.
Results :
Total publications (mean±SE) for residents were 2.95±0.33 for the class of 2022 and 1.67±0.23 for the class of 2017; mean publications in ophthalmology journals were 1.00±0.18 (2022) and 0.58±0.13 (2017); mean first author publications were 0.95±0.12 (2022) and 0.64±0.11 (2017) and mean second author publications were 0.63±0.10 (2022) and 0.37±0.06 (2017) (Table 1). Both total publications and second author publications were significantly higher for the class of 2022 than the class of 2017 (p<0.01; p<0.05) with observed differences of 55.4% and 52%, respectively. Although there were no significant differences in first author publications (p=0.069) or in ophthalmology journals (p=0.069), the observed p-values support the trend of increasing research among students.
Conclusions :
Overall, the authors found a temporal trend towards increased publications amongst applicants. While this study helps map out a 5-year period, it does not delineate between abstracts, presentations, or publications; further studies are needed to determine the individual value of these subcategories. Nevertheless, this analysis emphasizes both the growing importance of research and can help future applicants navigate the ophthalmology match.
This is a 2021 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.