Content analysis of Dalhousie University family medicine residents’ scholarly projects: What do they write about?

Abstract

Background. Scholarly projects have long been required in physician training programs in Canada and the United States. While there is literature on challenges and solutions in delivering scholarly curricula, we found no publications describing residents’ topic choices. Our objectives were to systematically describe the nature of scholarly projects completed by Dalhousie University family medicine residents and reflect on how the findings relate to training and practice.

Methods. We reviewed all 363 scholarly projects completed by 407 Dalhousie University Family Medicine residents during 2019-2024. We used two forms of manifest content analysis: (1) categorization in four domains reflecting the nature and complexity of family medicine (practice activities, practice settings, life course phase and determinants of health), and (2) assignment of keywords based on residents’ wording.

Results. Literature appraisals were the most common project type (32%), followed by clinical education tools (29%), research (19%), position papers (9%), medical education tools (7%), practice quality improvement (2%), and humanities (2%). The number of research and literature appraisal projects declined in the COVID pandemic years. Residents chose a wide range of topics across the life course, most frequently care of acute and chronic physical and mental health conditions and preventive care in usual practice settings, and health system determinants of health. Half addressed nonclinical along with clinical topics, and many addressed highly topical issues of current interest to Canadian communities. Few residents addressed socioeconomic determinants of health such as finances and employment.

Conclusions. The residents addressed a wide variety of clinical and nonclinical topics in their scholarly projects, including topics beyond the core subjects identified for competency assessment, and novel topics of evolving current interest. The findings demonstrate topics rarely addressed by the residents. The findings indicate that the goals of the scholarly project curriculum were being met. We discuss implications for family physicians’ training and roles.