Summary: Radiologists are spending significantly less time teaching residents, with their training workload dropping from 35.3% in 2008 to 24.5% in 2020, as rising clinical demands and increased workloads, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, have impacted their ability to engage in resident training.
Key Takeaways
- Radiologists’ teaching time has decreased significantly, with resident training dropping from 35.3% of their workload in 2008 to 24.5% by 2020, largely due to increased clinical demands and the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The overall workload for radiologists rose by 80% between 2008 and 2019, with teaching radiologists experiencing a 19% drop in the rate of cases read with trainees.
- Despite more radiologists reading cases with trainees, the average workload per radiologist still increased by 7%, contributing to concerns about teaching quality, burnout, and reduced time for resident training.
Radiologists teaching residents are spending less time in that role, with resident training decreasing from 35.3% of their workload in 2008 to 26.3% by 2019, and further dropping to 24.5% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research by the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute. The researchers also observed that radiologists’ aggregate workload increased by 80% from 2008 to 2019.
Imaging Workload for Radiologists Rises 7%
“Increasing volume has been a challenge in radiology departments, which provided impetus for this study. Anecdotally, the burgeoning workload appears to be a barrier for radiologists to engage in training residents, but no studies have evaluated these teaching trends with objective evidence. Our national study shows a 19% drop-in rate of cases read with a trainee among teaching radiologists, representing a significant and meaningful decrease,” says Judah Burns, MD, radiologist and vice chair of radiology education at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.
The data indicated that the total increase in imaging workload was absorbed to some extent with an increase in the total number of radiologists who read cases with trainees – from 20,530 in 2008 to 22,502 in 2020. However, the average Medicare Part B workload per radiologist still increased by 7% through 2019, before the pandemic.
“This increase in workload could impact the time available to dedicate to teaching the next generation of radiologists and has additional implications regarding burnout,” says senior author Andrew Rosenkranz, MD, director of health policy, department of radiology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
Subspecialist and Urban Radiologists Show Largest Teaching Decline
“Although our data does not include information about training effectiveness, the observed dispersion of training across a broader pool of radiologists, many of whom are doing very little training overall, indicates a need to evaluate change in quality and consistency,” adds YoonKyung Chung, PhD, principal policy researcher at the Neiman Institute. “While a subset (top 20%) of teaching radiologists is still doing a majority of their work with residents, this group has also demonstrated the largest drop in teaching workload, which is changing the training landscape.”
The research found that teaching radiologists were more likely to be subspecialists, work in urban settings, and be female compared to non-teaching radiologists, but the decline in teaching participation was seen across all radiologist groups and practice types.
