Certain radiology subspecialties less likely to score promotions than others
Certain radiology subspecialties are less likely to score promotions than others, with key implications for career planning, according to new data published Thursday.
In particular, rads working in breast imaging and pediatrics appear to achieve the lowest rates of career advancement, researchers write in Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology. Publication metrics had the highest influence on academic ranking, suggesting research is the strongest predictor of upward progress.
The findings are derived from data representing almost 7,000 academic radiologists across eight subspecialties. Gender had little effect on rank advancement, but the pediatric disadvantage persisted across all metrics and career stages, researchers found.
“Notably, all bibliometric factors combined explained only ∼31%–37% of rank status, highlighting the substantial role of nonpublication contributions (clinical, teaching, leadership, other research metrics),” David M. Yousem, MD, MBA, a radiologist with Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and co-authors concluded. “These findings suggest that applying uniform bibliometric benchmarks for promotion across all radiology subspecialties may be inappropriate, and contextualizing expectations by subspecialty may better serve faculty career planning and promotion committee deliberations.”
Yousem et al. gathered their data from institutions identified via the ACGME and US News & World Report listings. They used publicly available information on each institution’s official website to identify faculty members and their academic ranks. Subspecialties incorporated in the analysis included abdominal, breast and cardiothoracic imaging, interventional, musculoskeletal, neuro and pediatric radiology, and nuclear medicine.
The analysis unearthed significant differences in academic ranking distribution across subspecialties. Full professorship rates ranged from about 14% for breast imaging specialists to almost 38% among those in nuclear medicine/molecular imaging. When controlling for bibliometric thresholds and age, full professor attainment rates varied from 80% for musculoskeletal experts to 47% for others in pediatric or cardiothoracic imaging. Breast imagers, meanwhile, had the lowest advancement rates at every academic age threshold. The subspecialty also had the highest rate of faculty remaining at the assistant professor rank, even after 30-plus years following their first publication.
Yousem and colleagues noted that other factors such as time off, subspecialty workforce shortages, and protected academic hours may contribute to these disparities.
“The differences in promotion likelihood observed in this study may reflect structural and cultural factors intrinsic to each subspecialty rather than differences in individual merit or effort,” the authors wrote. “With respect to peds specifically, the ‘remoteness’ of faculty members at independent children’s hospitals (which may or may not have a tight affiliation with the appointment-conferring academic university) may account for some ecosystem variation in promotion patterns,” they added.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.