The Bulletin of the American Medical Association recently reported that approximately 40 per cent of recent graduates limit their practice to a specialty and another 40 per cent are giving particular attention to a specialty. Undoubtedly a great many of these physicians do not have the desired qualifications. This is true in the specialty of radiology as it is in most other specialties. According to the directory, 1,783 physicians limit their practice or give special attention to radium therapy and roentgenology. This group occupies the eighth place in numbers of physicians in the twenty-five specialties listed. The youngest specialty already embraces 3.7 per cent of all physicians designating themselves as specialists. The tendency of recent graduates to elect specialties rather than general practice is important in our consideration. Medical students to-day are evidently imbued with the idea that the science of medicine is so extensive that no one person can hope to compass the whole subject, and, therefore, each one should try to limit himself to some particular branch. Often a recent graduate, with no broad preliminary training or with only a few weeks' training in a post-graduate course, holds himself out as a radiologist or roentgenologist; thus the pseudo-specialist in roentgenology appears. Dr. J. B. Herrick states in an article appearing in The Journal that, “when the profession fails to keep the ideal of benefit to the patient before it, practice will degenerate and will be in essence dishonest.” It may possibly be construed as dishonest to hold oneself out as having superior knowledge and training in a certain branch (which is often the impression received by the public) when training has not actually been consummated. That danger attaches to the physician who is specialist in name only, who is poorly prepared, and lacks proper graduate study and broad experience. Objections to too much specialization are evidenced in the literature of the past few years and should constitute an argument in favor of certification of those specialists who have the proper qualifications. Objections in the main are not against the institution of specialization, for this progress is inevitable, but are directed against the self-appointed or pseudo-specialist, who has had only a minimum, or no, post-graduate experience. The field of radiology seems to be especially attractive to the recent graduate, as well as to the ambitious lay person, for the reason that mechanical devices are employed. To the uninformed public it appears that little training or special knowledge is necessary. You know, possibly better than I do, the number of lay persons trained as technicians who have established radiologic laboratories and who often attempt to give the impression that they are medically competent. The group attempts to convert this special branch of medicine into a trade and to carry an impression to the public that medical training is not essential.