03:54 PM Abstract No. 350 The IR Summer Scholars: a 12-year assessment of a structured medical student research program

The IR summer scholars program is a 3 month research internship created to give rising 2nd year medical students the opportunity to engage in an IR-related clinical research project while providing early exposure to the specialty. Program participants work directly with an IR faculty mentor on a project with the goals of abstract submission, presentation at an academic conference, and manuscript publication. Students also participate in IR section conferences, rounds, and procedures. This study assesses program outcomes. Fifty-three medical students (M=31, F=22) who participated in the program from its onset in 2004 to 2016 (median=4 students/year) were included in the study. Faculty mentorship and project topic data were obtained from a prospectively maintained database. Data regarding abstract acceptance and presentation, receipt of a research award, and manuscript publication was obtained from online resources such as Pubmed and JVIR as well as department records. Information on career choice was obtained from medical school records and publicly available online resources. Eight IR attendings served as faculty mentors, with 3 attendings mentoring the majority (41/53, 77.4%) of students. Forty (76%) participants presented abstracts regarding their projects, of which 37 (92.5%) were presented at the SIR annual meeting. Seven (19%) participants won the SIR Constantin Cope medical student research award. Thirty-one (77.5%) accepted abstracts were published as manuscripts. An additional 5/13 (38.5%) projects not presented were published, for a total publication rate of 68% (n=36) amongst all program participants. Nearly all (35/36, 97%) publishing participants were the first author of their respective manuscript. Manuscripts were published in 8 different journals, with 69% (n=25) published in JVIR and 8% (n=3) in CVIR. Twenty-three percent (11/48) of graduated participants went on to pursue careers in radiology. The IR summer scholars program is an effective means of engaging medical students in clinical IR research while early in their training. Participants have high rates of abstract presentation and manuscript publication.