Publication activity of future pediatricians: analysis of current practice

Abstract

Stimulating scientific activity in students of higher medical educational institutions is one of the important tasks of the current healthcare system. However, should this be limited to student journals and conferences only? Can students apply for publication in major scientific journals on an equal basis with renowned scientists? In our work, we determined how often medical students publish articles in peer-reviewed pediatric journals and whether the scientometric indicators of their work differ from the general array of articles. We manually selected 2,618 publications of the journals «Practical Pediatric Problems» and «Russian Bulletin of Perinatology and Pediatrics» using the information analysis system of the Scientific Electronic Library, of which 74 articles (2,8%) were written with the participation of students. They do not differ significantly from the total number of publications based on to the main scientometric indicators, such as the total number of citations of publications, the average number of citations per article, and the number of articles cited at least once. This indirectly suggests that these materials comply with the accepted standards of publishing practice typical for peer-reviewed scientific journals. We believe that, under the guidance of experienced teachers, future pediatricians can not only contribute to the collection of materials for research and their statistical processing, but also, possibly, offer new ideas based on advanced medical knowledge.