Is Your Profession Worth 1%?

Abstract

Practicing radiologists have long enjoyed the luxury of a specialty that year after year expanded their armamentarium of diagnostic imaging tools and minimally invasive therapies with very little competition from other specialties in medicine. To them, and many of us, this occurred at no cost to their practices and virtually on autopilot, raising the expectation that this pattern would last forever. In the past decade, and increasingly in the past few years, this vision of radiologic nirvana has been shattered, leaving many radiologists asking, “Who will stop this and protect me and my practice?” The answer is that no one will do this for us. Only we, as a unified radiology community, have the resources and capability to distinguish ourselves as the inventors, innovators, and highest quality providers of these services. The Crisis in Academic Radiology: Will We Help Ourselves?Journal of the American College of RadiologyVol. 3Issue 4PreviewThe overall health of academic radiology suffers from insufficient funds and manpower. Although the largest academic programs in the country may have sufficient resources to maintain robust academic environments, one third to half of the academic radiology programs in the United States are struggling to maintain stable academic environments. The impact of an impaired academic radiology enterprise on the specialty of radiology is far reaching. As academic departments falter, the quantity and quality of research and educational programs deteriorate. Full-Text PDF