Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Aug 19;25(1):1178.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-025-07133-7.

Association of completing an intercalated year-long research degree with post-graduation academic success

Ibrahim S Al-Busaidi  1 , William Ju  2 , Yassar Alamri  3 , Tim J Wilkinson  4
Affiliations

Association of completing an intercalated year-long research degree with post-graduation academic success

Ibrahim S Al-Busaidi et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: There is a paucity of data regarding the long-term outcomes of research intercalation during under-graduate medical studies, and the long-term academic effects it can have for such students. This study aimed to investigate the associations with longer-term academic success for students who undertook a BMedSc(Hons) degree intercalated within a medical degree.

Methods: The study used a matched cohort design. Cases were medical students who completed a BMedSc(Hons) degree at our institution between 1995 and 2006; controls were matched for gender and graduation year. Our primary outcome was the association of completing a BMedSc(Hons) with three academic success variables: quantity of post-graduation peer-reviewed publications, completion of higher academic degrees, and attainment of faculty/academic positions post-graduation.

Results: We found that students completing a BMedSc(Hons) were more than seven times as likely to have at least one peer-reviewed journal publication post-graduation compared with matched controls (77.7% vs. 37.2%, OR 7.3 (CI: 3.13-13.17.21), P < 0.001). They were also more likely to have a greater number of publications (n = 577 vs. n = 140), more likely to complete a higher academic degree (18.1% vs. 6.4%, OR 3.2 (CI: 1.17-8.74), P = 0.023) including a PhD (13.8% vs. 1.1%, OR 13.0 (CI: 1.70-99.38), P = 0.013), but they were not significantly more likely to attain a faculty position (17% vs. 11.7%, OR 1.6 (CI: 0.67-3.59), P = 0.301).

Conclusion: Medical students completing a research degree go on to have successful academic careers. We hypothesize that building research networks early in a student's career is associated with their ability to participate in research in the future, although attaining faculty/academic positions may be influenced by other factors.

Keywords: Clinical academic training; Early research exposure; Intercalated degree; Medical education; Medical school; Medical student research; Publishing; Research.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study solely used publicly accessible data from open-access sources. No contact was made with individuals or institutions to obtain further information for the purposes of this study. Thus, ethics approval was not required according to NZ national guidelines. The study was conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: ISA is a handling editor for BMC Medical Education and TJW is a section editor for BMC Medical Education but both had no role in the review or editorial decisions for this paper.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Ley TJ, Rosenberg LE. The Physician-Scientist career pipeline in 2005: build it, and they will come. JAMA. 2005;294(11):1343–51. - PubMed
    1. Rao RC, Dlouhy BJ, Capell BC, Akeju O. The endangered physician-scientist and COVID-19. Cell Rep Med. 2021;2(2):100190. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jain MK, Cheung VG, Utz PJ, Kobilka BK, Yamada T, Lefkowitz R. Saving the endangered Physician-Scientist — A plan for accelerating medical breakthroughs. N Engl J Med. 2019;381(5):399–402. - PubMed
    1. Al-Busaidi IS, Wells CI. Stimulating the clinical academics of tomorrow: a survey of research opportunities for medical students in new Zealand. N Z Med J. 2017;130(1462):80–8. - PubMed
    1. Al-Busaidi IS. Effect of an intercalated research degree on general practice careers: a matched cohort study. J Prim Health Care. 2020;12(2):159–65. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources