My experience is that in 8-12 months is flying for a publication acceptance. I had three first-author publications last year and the fastest one from submission to publication (when it should up on PubMed, as an in-press article) was just over 8 months and this was accepted at the first journal submitted. My two others took between 12-18 months.
On the other end of the spectrum, I have a research study that was rejected at 5 journals and I am in the process of submitting it to MSSE. This study is going on 12+ months of submission. The study itself was conducted in 2005.
The previous post stated 2-4 months, however, this is not feasible for a resident because, what you are doing is not a ground-breaking, multicenter, multinational, major clinical trial with funding that covers people who do the writing, editing and submission for you.
Strategies to accelarate the process include, adding a big name to the paper as an author and submitting it to the journal that he or she is an editor of. Second, simple non obtrusive inquiry to the editors and editorial staff. Third suggestion of peer reviewers that are really going to do this for you (however, this is dangerous because it crosses into people that know you and may pose conflicts of interest into the review) Next, many journals post stats on how fast they are to decision on submissions. and Finally, there are these questionable journals that if you pay a priority processing fee, they promise to have either an acceptance/rejection decision within 2-4 weeks.
