I read with interest the findings of Al-Busaidi and Al-Shaqsi on the contribution of medical students to the NZMJ. It is sobering to see such encouraging trend of high-quality medical student-led research in New Zealand. From as far back as the mid-1600s,1 medical students have significantly contributed to scientific and medical research. The NZMJ is a respected journal that has evidently fostered a healthy and supportive publishing environment for medical students, not only in New Zealand, but also internationally.However, the trend worldwide, unfortunately, has not been as encouraging. Examining the published literature reveals two alarming trends. First, there is a gradual decrease in the number of physician-scientists (a term that refers to medical students intercalating a research-based degree, such as a PhD or, less often, MPH or BMedSci).2,3 Building a solid research foundation early in the students career allows for a continued path in that trajectory as a young physician.4 Thankfully, in New Zealand the number of intercalating students (ie, mainly MBChB/BMedSc(Hons)) has been on the rise over the past 15 years.5The second trend is that even though the number of student-authored articles has slightly increased, the ratio of student authors per publication to the total number of authors has, in fact, decreased.6 That is, more senior authors were being added to published articles while the number of medical student authors remained static. Whether this is due to more collaborative research or, more worryingly, to senior authors being included as honorary authors remains to be elucidated. With this in mind, it would be interesting to re-examine this studys data to explore our student-author to senior-author ratio.One final point deserves to be mentioned. The observed seasonal variation in publishing student research is intriguing, but not unheard of. Such temporal bias has been studied in other journals, and while some journals exhibit such variation,7,8 others do not.7,9,10 For Northern Hemisphere journals that have shown month-to-month variation, summer months (especially July) seemed to have a higher acceptance rate. As Al-Busaidi et al have alluded to in the article, seasonal variation may be due to the nature of academic schedules, the effect of which extends to both authors (ie, submission rates) and NZMJ editors (ie, acceptance rates).

I read with interest the findings of Al-Busaidi and Al-Shaqsi on the contribution of medical students to the NZMJ. It is sobering to see such encouraging trend of high-quality medical student-led research in New Zealand. From as far back as the mid-1600s,1 medical students have significantly contributed to scientific and medical research. The NZMJ is a respected journal that has evidently fostered a healthy and supportive publishing environment for medical students, not only in New Zealand, but also internationally.However, the trend worldwide, unfortunately, has not been as encouraging. Examining the published literature reveals two alarming trends. First, there is a gradual decrease in the number of physician-scientists (a term that refers to medical students intercalating a research-based degree, such as a PhD or, less often, MPH or BMedSci).2,3 Building a solid research foundation early in the students career allows for a continued path in that trajectory as a young physician.4 Thankfully, in New Zealand the number of intercalating students (ie, mainly MBChB/BMedSc(Hons)) has been on the rise over the past 15 years.5The second trend is that even though the number of student-authored articles has slightly increased, the ratio of student authors per publication to the total number of authors has, in fact, decreased.6 That is, more senior authors were being added to published articles while the number of medical student authors remained static. Whether this is due to more collaborative research or, more worryingly, to senior authors being included as honorary authors remains to be elucidated. With this in mind, it would be interesting to re-examine this studys data to explore our student-author to senior-author ratio.One final point deserves to be mentioned. The observed seasonal variation in publishing student research is intriguing, but not unheard of. Such temporal bias has been studied in other journals, and while some journals exhibit such variation,7,8 others do not.7,9,10 For Northern Hemisphere journals that have shown month-to-month variation, summer months (especially July) seemed to have a higher acceptance rate. As Al-Busaidi et al have alluded to in the article, seasonal variation may be due to the nature of academic schedules, the effect of which extends to both authors (ie, submission rates) and NZMJ editors (ie, acceptance rates).