All residents and fellows in the department are asked to submit a completed project, work in progress, or project plan for the symposium. Medical students, graduate students, and undergraduate students who have been working on surgical research projects at Baylor College of Medicine are also encouraged to submit their work. We also welcome submissions from postdoctoral research fellows and non-faculty staff in the Department of Surgery.

The top scoring abstracts will be selected for oral presentation. Most other abstracts will be eligible for poster presentation. You may submit more than one abstract as first author, but only one abstract per first author will be selected for presentation. Acceptances will be sent the week of TBD via email. The acceptance email will describe the type of presentation and provide additional instructions for preparing the presentation.

The program committee will score all scientific abstracts based on the following five criteria:

• Significance and innovation – Does the abstract address an important problem or question? Is the study objective or hypothesis clearly stated?
• Study design and methods – Are the methods appropriate and clearly described?
• Results and analysis – Do the results address the scientific question or hypothesis? Do the results reflect an appropriate analysis? Are quantitative data reported whenever possible?
• Conclusions – Are the conclusions justified by the data? Do the conclusions relate specifically to the stated objective or hypothesis?
• Clarity – Is the overall abstract clearly written and easy to understand? If used, is the table or figure clear and informative?

Abstracts can feature a completed project, work in progress, or project plan. Case reports will not be accepted. On the abstract submission form, you will be asked to classify your abstract as a Scientific Abstract (for completed projects or work in progress) or as a Project Plan Abstract. You will also be asked to categorize the type of research.

Scientific Abstracts: Scientific abstracts should describe either completed work or work that is currently in progress. Case reports will not be accepted. The goal of the symposium is to enable trainees to present their best work; therefore, abstracts can describe work that has been previously presented at scientific meetings or published in the literature. Although abstracts presented at previous years’ Research Symposium events cannot be resubmitted, new abstracts reflecting substantive progress in the same project are acceptable. The presenter must be the first author on the abstract, and the abstract must reflect work done by the presenter during the past year. It is acceptable to submit more than one abstract as first author, but only one abstract per presenter will be selected for the program. We anticipate that the program will feature oral scientific presentations, quick shot presentations, and poster sessions. The top scoring abstracts will be selected for the oral presentation competition, the quick shot presentation competition, and the poster competition; separate awards will be given for the best basic science and clinical/education research presentations.

Project Plan Abstracts: These abstracts should describe the plans for a project in clinical, health services, educational, or basic science research. Trainees should work with a faculty member to select and plan a project. Although abstracts presented at previous years’ Research Symposium events cannot be resubmitted, new abstracts reflecting substantive progress in the same project are acceptable. The abstract must reflect work that will be done by the first author. It is acceptable to submit more than one abstract as first author, but only one abstract per first author will be selected. Project plan abstracts will be included in the printed program.

Abstract Submission Instructions
All abstracts must be submitted via the online submission system by 6:00 pm on Monday, March 29, 2024. Abstracts will be submitted using the following format.

• Authors – List all authors contributing to the work. The presenting author must be listed first, followed by co-authors and senior author/faculty mentor. All abstracts must include a faculty member as senior author; senior authors may be faculty members from other BCM departments or from other institutions.
• Abstract - Each abstract is limited to 2000 characters (including spaces); titles and authors are excluded from this count. Avoid symbol fonts such as α, β, γ in your abstract; instead spell them out as in: alpha, beta, gamma. Abstracts must include the following four sections:
  • Background – Describe why the study was conducted and state the objective and/or hypothesis. In abstracts describing planned projects, this section should convey the rationale behind the project.
  • Methods – Describe how the study was conducted, focusing on study design, experimental techniques, and analytic approach. In abstracts describing planned projects, this section should describe the plans for conducting the study.
  • Results – Describe the most important findings of the study. Quantitative results should be reported whenever possible. Abstracts can include one figure or one table. In abstracts describing planned projects, this section should describe the anticipated results.
  • Conclusions – Describe the conclusions reached based specifically on the study results and comment on the relevance of the study. In abstracts describing planned projects, this section should describe the potential impact of the study in the care of patients with surgical disease.
• Tables and Figures: Tables and figures are permitted. If included, they will need to be uploaded as a single PDF, MS Excel, or MS Word document.
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  Download PDF Abstract Submission Instructions