On the residency program side of the Match equation, medical student research output is a major factor in ranking applicants. Among neurosurgery applicants, for example, the total number of residency applicant publications has emerged as the strongest predictor of Match success in the specialty beyond licensing exam scores, according to a study published in the academic journal Neurosurgery.
Yet, when it comes to medical student research, sheer volume may be an incomplete measure of scholarly work. The authors of the 2025 study argued that not all publications reflect the same level of effort, and that publication type and authorship position may offer a more meaningful way to assess scholarly work.
For medical students pursuing research opportunities, including authorship of peer-reviewed journal articles, the question may be: How much will programs value quantity versus quality? Expert insights and key data points offer insight on that question.
The research “arms race”
While the residency-selection impact of medical student research varies significantly by physician specialty, in fields such as neurosurgery that are deemed “competitive,” research volume has become a marker of the caliber of an applicant.
That dynamic has helped fuel what the authors of the Neurosurgery study called a publication “arms race.” As residency applicants try to stand out in a highly competitive field of applicants, publication totals can become a shorthand for scholarly productivity and commitment to the specialty.
The study’s authors—who hail from more than a dozen medical schools and healthcare institutions from across the country—argued that this shorthand has limitations. A raw count may reward applicants who accumulate lower-effort publications while obscuring differences in how much work an applicant actually contributed.
Maya Hammoud, MD, MBA, is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology who has done extensive work related to residency selection through a grant from the AMA Reimagining Residency initiative. She shares the belief that publication count alone is a flawed metric upon which to judge a residency applicant.
“I certainly have seen students who made it look like they have done a lot on a project, and when you ask them about the project during an interview, they couldn’t really say much about it.”
Giving weight to research quality
To examine how much effort residency applicants were putting into their peer-reviewed journal publications, the 2025 study reviewed 537 publications from 57 interviewed applicants at a single neurosurgery residency program during the 2022–2023 Match cycle.
The study’s authors introduced a scoring approach designed to move beyond publication count alone. Researchers assigned each paper a publication effort score on a four-point scale. Lower-effort items such as letters, editorials, historical commentaries and replies were assigned the lowest values, while clinical studies, basic science papers, meta-analyses and cadaveric studies received the highest values. Papers published in very high-impact peer-reviewed journals could receive an extra point.
Residency applicants in the study’s sample averaged 9.28 publications. In assessing research outputs through the lens of their quality output, 31.5% of those publications were first-authored by the applicant. About 26.1% were categorized as minimal-effort publications, and only 41.3% qualified as higher-effort work, according to the researchers’ rubric.
For medical students interested in exploring the scholarly work of peers, the AMA Research Challenge virtual poster symposium and semifinals, set for Oct. 13–15, will feature research from more than 1,000 medical students, residents and international medical graduates. AMA members can help judge semifinal posters and score the research that will determine the five finalists. Register now.
The authorship hierarchy
In her career working with residency programs and applicants, Dr. Hammoud has found that first authorship does offer a level of insight into a student’s participation.
A first-author peer-reviewed journal publication “matters to programs to a certain extent,” Dr. Hammoud said. “The dynamic of being a first author tends to be a lot different than versus a student who's a middle author out of a publication that has 12 authors on it. A first author is going to someone who has played the major role in designing a study and the actual writing of the publication.”
Still, she wouldn’t say author position is a perfect barometer for a student’s involvement in a project or how they grew from the experience.
“Just the publication itself doesn't necessarily indicate what a student learned, nor does it indicate the student curiosity in participating in that project,” Dr. Hammoud said.
How medical students can highlight research
Dr. Hammoud said that if a medical student has done high-quality research, they should work to highlight that as part of their residency application packet and during interviews.
That starts with discussing the work in one’s personal statement and highlighting it as meaningful experience on their residency application. Dr. Hammoud said applicants should be able to clearly explain their interest in a project, how they got involved and what they learned.
Medical students should also be able to talk about their work in residency interviews.
“They should make sure they are able to articulate their role and what they did if they wrote that this was meaningful to them,” Dr. Hammoud said.
She also encouraged students not to pursue medical research just for the sole reason of increasing the number of peer-reviewed publications on their resumes.
“Students should get involved in research because they love it,” Dr. Hammoud said. “Not to check a box.”
For medical students looking to hone their research skills, the AMA offers resources and programs that bring you from the basics all the way to the AMA Research Challenge where you can compete for a $10,000 prize, presented by KeyBank.
