INTRODUCTION: Graduation at the University of Zagreb School of Medicine ends with writing the graduate thesis. Publications derived from graduate theses represent an indicator of the quality of the theses and the measure of the students’ involvement in scientific research. The aim of this research was to determine the number of publications derived from the graduate thesis. ----- MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this retrospective study, 1035 graduate theses from the University of Zagreb School of Medicine from 2013/2014 to 2016/2017 were analysed. Google Scholar was used to identify the publications in which the names of the authors were matched with the topics of the thesis. Analysis was performed in order to investigate the factors affecting the probability of publishing the results of the graduate theses. ----- RESULTS: In our study, 80% of students had the graduation thesis in the form of the literature review. 80.6% of mentors were from the clinical departments. 6.6% of students published their graduation theses. No significant difference was found in the publication rate between the fields of the topics. Significantly more published papers were derived from the thesis written in the research form than from the group of review papers. ----- CONCLUSION: Majority of students write their thesis in the form of the literature review. Our research showed that writing the thesis in the form of research is related to the significantly higher publication rate. Thus, in order to increase the scientific productivity of medical students the share of research topics among the offered graduate theses topics should be higher.