Residency training data: What do the numbers tell us?

Abstract

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) regularly collects data on accredited residency programs that are useful for purposes of comparing resident demographics, turnover rates of program directors, and trends in program numbers and accreditation status. These data show that there are relatively fewer women in radiology residencies compared with other nonsurgical residencies. Women make up only 25% of core radiology residents. Further investigation is warranted to determine why this is so, because it will likely affect the ability to recruit female radiologists into leadership positions. Considering ACGME-accredited programs, those radiology subspecialties with the highest percentages of female trainees are pediatric radiology (45%) and nuclear radiology (44%). The turnover rate of radiology program directors is high (19%) relative to other specialties (14% on average), and this is being addressed in part by a change in the radiology program requirements. Other factors associated with this high turnover rate may also need to be addressed.