OBJECTIVES: To determine the publication rate of abstracts presented by UK emergency physicians at major emergency medicine meetings, and to identify the site of publication of papers. METHOD: All abstracts presented to the annual scientific meetings of both the British Association of Emergency Medicine and the Faculty of Accident and Emergency Medicine between 2001 and 2002 were identified retrospectively from conference programmes. To identify whether the work relating to the abstract had been published in a peer-reviewed journal, the Medline database (Ovid interface) was searched using the first and last authors as well as key words from the abstract. RESULTS: Of the 404 abstracts identified, 124 (30%) had been published as full articles. For abstracts presented in the oral sessions, 83 (57%) resulted in publication. A range of journals accepted papers for publication. CONCLUSION: The abstract-to-publication ratio for UK emergency medicine is lower than for other specialties, but broadly similar to emergency medicine in the US and Australia.