Medical student journals: promoting academic research and publishing

Abstract

Medical students have made significant contributions to science and medicine throughout history. Such landmark contributions include the discovery of insulin, heparin, and the sinoatrial node. 1 The importance and benefits of early exposure to scholarly activities have recently been scrutinised. Participation in undergraduate medical research is associated with short-and long-term scholarly achievements, including improved research knowledge and skills, increased interest in future involvement in research, peer-reviewed journal publications, grants, and appointment to faculty positions. 2,3 A recent meta-analysis by Amgad et al. found that students who took part in research during medical school were more than twice as likely to publish at least one article post-graduation, more than three times as likely to participate in research activities later in their career, and over six times as likely to pursue a career in academic medicine. 3 Medical schools across the globe have systematically incorporated research education and training pathways into their medical curricula. 3 In New Zealand, several research training programmes, both formal and informal, are available to medical students. These include intercalated research degrees i.e. Bachelor of Medical Sciences with Honours (BMedSc(Hons)) or Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), summer studentships, and mandatory research projects (Figure 1). 4 Recently, studies have examined academic outcomes from these programmes and found them to result in tangible research outputs, with a journal publication rate ranging between 8.4-33%. [5][6][7][8] This is comparable to the average publication rate of medical student research worldwide (30%). 3