Funding-related barriers preventing many radiology residency programs from expanding
Although most radiology programs have the capacity to create additional residency spots, many are faced with barriers that prevent them from doing so.
That’s according to a new poster presentation from this week’s annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. The research, which was conducted by experts at Penn State College of Medicine, suggests that financial limitations are the main culprit preventing radiology residency programs from expanding and leaves current providers struggling to keep up with demand.
“Diagnostic imaging use has surged across U.S. healthcare over the past decade. Between 2013 and 2023, CT use in [emergency departments] increased 133%, despite a 16% drop in ED visits,” Himi Begum, BS, and colleagues noted. “Radiologist supply has not kept pace with rising demand, driving workforce strain and burnout.”
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) caps the “resident complement” based on space, volume and faculty, the group explained. The team recently analyzed the ability of U.S.-based ACGMA-accredited residency programs to expand, seeking to determine what the primary factors that prevent them from doing so might be. To do this, they distributed electronic surveys to program directors and assisted program directors throughout the U.S., receiving responses from 47 programs.
Most of the respondents (84.8%) reported the capacity to expand. On average, the programs had eight residents per year, with a mean potential increase in capacity of 2.8 residents per year.
For many of these programs the ability to increase the number of spots did not translate into recruiting additional residents. The factors most commonly cited for this decision were limited resources, insufficient faculty-to-resident ratios, lack of time, insufficient rationale and accreditation status.
However, most of the programs selected “other” when asked why they did not request an increase; when queried further, respondents cited funding-related issues, such as lack of institutional/GME support, residency caps and denial of hospital funding requests.
“Funding limitations, rather than accreditation barriers, remain the primary constraint to program expansion,” the group noted, adding that “when institutional resources are adequate, ACGME approval rates for complement increases are high.”
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In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.