A Snapshot on Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Resident Scholarly Activity: Can We Do Better?

Background: The Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) requires oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS) residents to engage in scholarly activity. Currently, it is unknown how this mandate translates into research output.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to quantify the research output of OMS residents. In addition, we sought to identify characteristics associated with resident productivity.

Study Design: This was a cross-sectional study of all OMS residents during the 2021-2022 academic year. Attempts were made to obtain resident rosters from every CODA-accredited OMS program. Resident names were searched in PubMed (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) to identify peer-reviewed publications. Postgraduate year (PGY), program name, and total publication count during residency were recorded for each resident. Academic status and fellowship affiliation of the residency program were also included.

Predictor/exposure/independent Variable: The primary predictor was PGY level of each resident.

Main Outcome Variable: The main outcome variable was the publication count of each OMS resident during the 2021-2022 academic year.

Covariates: The covariates were the academic status and the fellowship affiliation of the residency program. A program was determined academic if they were associated with a dental or medical school. A program was determined fellowship associated if they had any CODA approved fellowship.

Analyses: Simple bivariate comparisons were performed using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests.

Results: Complete resident rosters were identified for 87 residency programs. One thousand one hundred thirty two residents were queried and a total of 548 peer-reviewed publications were identified. There was a mean of 6.30 publications per program and 0.43 publications per resident. More than half of all residents had no identifiable publication. PGY5 residents averaged the most publications per resident (1.45) followed by PGY6 (1.04) and PGY4 (0.63). Academic programs had significantly more publications per resident than nonacademic programs (median of 3.00 vs 0.00, P = .02). Programs with a fellowship association also had more publications per resident (median of 5.00 vs 2.00, P < .01).

Conclusion: Current CODA research requirements do not translate into resident publications. Publication counts appeared to slightly increase with PGY level; however, OMS resident productivity still lags far behind that of other surgical subspecialties.