Introduction

In the era of evidence-based medicine, scientific research is becoming increasingly crucial in medical training and practice, offering numerous benefits for health professionals.

Objective

To determine whether publication during undergraduate studies is associated with publication after graduation from medical school.

Methods

A retrospective cohort study was conducted using the publications of physicians who graduated from the School of Medicine of the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences (UPC) during the years 2013-2017. Physicians whose theses are published in the academic repository of the university were included in the study. Scientific publications were obtained through a systematic search in PubMed and Google Scholar. For bivariate analysis, the chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests were used.

Results

A total of 249 participants were analyzed. Seventy-two percent of them published at least once during undergraduate, while 27% published at least once as graduates. An association was found between the number of articles published during undergraduate studies and publications as a graduate (p 0.02). Of the participants who published during their undergraduate studies, 30.4% had subsequent publications (p 0.06).

Conclusions

The proportion of UPC medical students who publish in scientific journals is high. Having published during undergraduate studies increases the likelihood of continuing to publish as a graduate.