488 - A short, intensive course in scientific writing for pediatric residents: How to write your first paper

A need for research physicians has been identified in clinical medicine. However, no clear scientific curriculum has been established in pediatric training programs, and residents are not always confident of their ability to write scientific publications and face various barriers.


Objective:

A short, intensive course was developed and evaluated with the goal of developing pediatric residents' ability to write articles for the peer review system.

Design/Methods:

The individual goals were broken down into 14 components that were considered necessary for writing a paper. Class meetings take the form of lectures and case discussions using mock cases, 2 months. Each lecture is approximately 30–60 minutes long and is conducted in a participatory format. Continue mentoring with small milestones with each resident after the course is completed. Items below are rated using a 5-point Likert scale: Self-assessment questionnaire to measure confidence in writing papers before and after each workshop; to measure confidence in achieving each individual goal; Satisfaction with the course; and 6-month observation to tabulate and evaluate the date that writing the manuscript was started, the submission date, and the acceptance date. All mean values were compared before and after the course using the Student’s t-test, and a significance level of p = 0.05 was used.

Results:

The participants were twenty-two pediatric residents who had never published a peer-reviewed paper, and all of them completed all response questionnaires. The intensive course was conducted twice through December 2022, including a 6-month observation period. The level of confidence in writing papers was greater after than before each session of the course. Although this measure was done again each time, a gradual increase was seen overall, with an improvement from before the first session (average of 1.3) to after the last session (average of 2.8) (increase of 1.5; 95% CI, 0.5–2.6; p = 0.010). Confidence in own ability to achieve each of the 14 general goal before and after the course increased significantly. Overall, 32 out of the 33 respondents were very satisfied with the course. Fourteen participants started writing manuscripts (mean; 54.5 days), and seven submitted papers (mean; 112.5 days). Tree paper was accepted (mean; 166.0 days).

Conclusion(s):

During the follow-up period, confidence in writing gradually increased, along with the increase in confidence in individual goals. This indicates that removing barriers to writing papers one by one and building confidence is more effective than only teaching the technical aspects of writing.