Radiology has always been a very well-compensated specialty (just check out the House of God, written in the 70s...); however radiologist compensation has increased recently. This increase is in the face of decreasing unit reimbursement and is related to radiologists working more productively and/or for longer hours (I think the latter is a major factor, which we don't talk about much!!).
Rads used to be easier to get into, but the recent (1990s) experience, when it was easy, is not representative. Before that rads was reasonably competitive. My understanding is that competition fell in the 1990s when anticipated changes from managed care made people afraid to enter specialties. The pendulum has now swung the other way. In addition, I think the relative disadvantages of other specialties has increased (more unpaid activities, more paperwork, hard to get OR time etc. etc.)
Also, radiology has gotten much cooler in the last decade with advances in MRI, CT, Molecular imaging (PET) and refinements in radiography (DR) and US. Not to mention the explosion in interventional radiology. Just a thought.
Cheers
