Attendance and Quality and Quantity of Research Presentations at an Obstetrics and Gynecology Regional Meeting Pre- and Postchanges in Federal Funding

Introduction: Participating in scientific meetings offers value to physician trainees and faculty. In 2012, the U.S. Government (including the Department of Defense) instituted restrictions on conference travel, requiring central approval to attend. Hence, our objective was to determine the academic impact of research presented at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Armed Forces District Meeting and the effect of this federally mandated policy change on attendance and the quality and quantity of research.

Materials and methods: Attendance logs and meeting programs were reviewed for the 3 years immediately before and after institution of travel regulations. A PubMed search of each abstract was performed to determine if it resulted in publication and the mean duration in months from presentation to publication was calculated and compared between oral and poster presentations. The top journals accepting manuscripts were noted along with the corresponding impact factor.

Results: The overall meeting publication rate was 22%. Oral presentations were significantly more likely than posters to achieve publication (P < 0.001). Following implementation of travel regulations, mean faculty attendance declined from 130 per year to 105 (P < 0.05). Declines in resident attendance and publication rates were not statistically significant. The top journals publishing investigations included Obstetrics and Gynecology (n = 15), Military Medicine (n = 12), and Fertility and Sterility and Gynecologic Oncology (tied, both n = 11).

Conclusion: Approximately one in five presentations at the ACOG Armed Forces District Meeting are published, many in high impact journals within the specialty. Implementation of stricter travel regulations adversely impacted faculty physician attendance, but not trainee participation or the publication rate.