Reply to: How can we Increase the Number of Scientific Publications in General and Gastrointestinal Surgery?

I thank you for your invitation to respond to this letter, which mentions the problem of the limited number of scientific papers written by surgical residents that are published.

In the results of our article¹ about the activity of residents in a multicenter study, there was notable bias since the participating hospitals were centers especially dedicated to teaching. Therefore, it is quite probable that the actual number of publications during residency is even lower.

I share the idea that the incentive to improve these results should be aimed at 2 factors in particular:

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  The first of these is the centers where medical residents receive their training. Structured bibliographic sessions should be organized continuously so that residents become used to reviewing relevant articles. The center should be in the habit of publishing the studies performed in the departments. Tutors of residents are essential, and they should design the resident training program depending on the characteristics of each centre and based on the national program for our specialty.² It is important for the hospital to reward the effort involved in the publication of an article in an indexed journal.

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  On the other hand, it is important for the Spanish Association of Surgeons to continue with the organization of pre-congress courses and workshops dealing with the design, development and review of articles.

But as previously commented, more important than the number of articles is their quality. Therefore, great relevance should be given to training residents in study design, starting with the description of relevant clinical cases, then observational and analytical studies, and finally introducing the residents to prospective, controlled and randomized study design. Such training should include: (a) how to present studies to Ethics and Research Committees and, depending on the study, whether it should be submitted and approved by the National Medicine Agency; (b) how to get funding (different types of grants, how to apply); (c) whether insurance is necessary for the study; and finally (d) how to register this type of study in international clinical trial registers, such as ClinicalTrials.gov.

We must give future surgeons solid, balanced surgical training with proper teaching and research training that will lead to the creation of publications with high scientific evidence.