Does publishing during residency matter? Medical students typically have published in the peer-reviewed literature prior to entering neurosurgery residency. Then neurosurgery residency begins and training is time-consuming. You get limited research exposure and time for preparing and submitting manuscripts. However, in this difficult environment of residency, publishing, especially first author publications, has been associated with later success in an academic career, among other factors. Academic publishing tells a story of your expertise, and the earlier this begins, the faster your story is more complete. Important factors to consider as you set out to expand your CV in relation to publications relate commonly to the following questions. First, what type of academic career are you seeking? Do you want to primarily be a surgeon scientist? And is that in an area of basic science or clinical science? Does your focused area of expertise involve being a surgeon educator or a surgeon innovator, including the development of novel devices, surgical procedures, patents, etc.? Are you primarily planning a privademic career, where you'll work with residents but may not be directly involved with a medical school with access to a research lab and research personnel? Do you have a specific subspecialty interest? Different subspecialties of neurosurgery have different expectations of where to publish and how to publish. And finally, do you have a specific institution in mind or type of institution for your future job? And are there guidelines on expectations at the time of hiring that would be beneficial for you to know as you prepare your CV for your future career? Now, factors to consider when publishing. First is the type of publication. And again, the type of publication you choose is largely driven by the type of practice you wanna pursue in the future and can include peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, case reports, reviews, case series, basic science versus clinical science, abstracts, posters, presentations, podcasts, et cetera. Order of authorship becomes important where earlier in your training, you're largely expected to do the greatest amount of effort towards a specific publication and first author publications are going to be more important at this time. Journal selection. This becomes important to determine the audience who's seeing your publications and where your work is being distributed. Is it more important for you to maximize the impact factor or to focus your attention on specific publication types independent of impact factor that will get your message to the audiences who need to see it to advance your specific career? Publishing early versus late in residency often also requires a different approach where early on, maybe your efforts are simply devoted to publishing something in neurosurgery, whereas later in residency, your publication should develop more of a focus in a specific subspecialty area. Subspecialization, again, is something that if you decide early can be very beneficial in building your CV early in your chosen subspecialty. And finally, opportunity. Looking around in your residency program, what opportunities of publication are available? And sometimes this dictates how you build out your CV. In summary, publishing can help build a story that will help you market yourself to a specific subspecialty fellowship or academic position. And early planning can avoid duplication of effort as you seek to build your CV in a very specific way for your future in academic neurosurgery. It's important to seek mentorship among faculty who have been successful in developing a career similar to what you would like to do with your career and talking to them, whether they're at your institution or at other institutions, about what works best in terms of preparing your CV from a publication standpoint in preparing for fellowship and your future academic career. Ultimately, publishing is an important part of preparing for and entering an academic career and answering these questions frequently as you work on building your CV can make a big difference in maximizing your chance for success in your future practice.

neurosurgery residency

academic career

surgeon scientist

surgeon educator

publishing strategy