Resident Publication Requirement

In keeping with the Constitutional objectives of the ACVS, each credentials applicant must demonstrate willingness to contribute to the literature. In addition to contributing to the literature, manuscripts originating from basic or clinical research enhance a resident’s education by the learning of scientific methodology, which may lead to the discovery of new concepts, or substantiate or refute established methods. Manuscripts should demonstrate intellectual curiosity and should further the state of surgical knowledge or other closely related biological sciences.

Criteria for Acceptance of a Publication

The minimum requirement is one publication fulfilling the following criteria:

1. The applicant must be the first or sole author. Co-first authorship is not allowed. The publication must have resulted from the applicant’s research or clinical investigation, but is not required to result from the research performed during the residency.
2. The date of publication cannot be more than five years old by the deadline for credentials submission. The manuscript must be accepted for publication prior to August 1 of the year of application.
3. The manuscript must be accepted by a publication on the Approved Journals List. A manuscript is considered accepted when the author receives a letter of acceptance from the editor and further review by a reviewer is not required. ACVS considers a reviewer to be an outside reviewer and not an employee (editor) of the journal. Editorial notations or changes affecting sentence structure are acceptable. A copy of the accepted version of the manuscript (including the title page with author information and all images, tables, and figures, OR, if in print, a copy of the published manuscript showing the date of publication must be submitted in the Credentials Application.

   An emailed letter of acceptance from the editor of any journal on the Approved Journals List can be submitted in lieu of a paper letter from the journal, provided that the following conditions are met:

   • The email must contain the date of acceptance in the body of the message (not simply in the header).
   • The email must indicate the name of the manuscript.
   • The email must show all routing information in the message header.

   If a resident wants to publish in a journal not on the current Approved Journals List, a petition must be made to the Board of Regents.

4.  The manuscript must follow a scientific approach, containing:
   • an introductory statement which summarizes the reason for the study,
   • a clearly stated hypothesis or objective,
   • an appropriate description of techniques used to satisfy the hypothesis or objective,
   • a report of the results appropriate to the study,
   • a discussion which interprets the results and their relation to the original hypothesis or objective, and
   • a conclusion which summarizes the importance of the study.

   These items need not be set apart under separate headers (i.e., Introduction, Materials and Methods, etc.) within the manuscript; some journals do not have such headers. However, these items must be clearly identifiable by the Resident Credentialing Committee reviewers to constitute an acceptable publication.

5. Papers such as book chapters, proceedings, review articles and case reports are not acceptable.
6. The information in the publication must not have been published previously by the same author, other than in abstract or proceedings form.
7. Clinical studies, which fulfill the above criteria, are acceptable.
8. The publication must be written in or fully translated to the English language.

Note: A candidate who is resubmitting a credentials application after three unsuccessful attempts at the examination is not required to resubmit a publication.