2016 ACR Hiring Projections

[UChicagoIR]

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The 2016 ACR Commission on Human Resources Workforce Survey.

Bluth EI, Bansal S.

J Am Coll Radiol. 2016 Oct;13(10):1227-1232.

 

[cowme]

Job market is very strong this year. Many fellows at my programs have locked down jobs already. Didn't happen in prior years until well into winter

 

[qwerty89]

August 10, 2016 -- The number of new jobs available for radiologists in 2016 will be 16% higher than those available in 2015, according to the fifth annual workforce survey by the Commission on Human Resources at the American College of Radiology (ACR). The study was published online August 3 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

The growth represents up to 2,223 new job openings for radiologists, wrote lead author Dr. Edward Bluth from the Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans, along with Swati Bansal from Sage Computing in Reston, VA.

"The 2016 workforce survey continues to show an increase in hiring," they wrote. "Considering that approximately 1,200 radiologists complete training each year, our survey indicates a definite improvement in job opportunities for all radiologists in 2016."

Bluth and Bansal found that more radiologists were hired in 2015 than predicted: between 1,474 and 1,913, compared with the group's 2015 estimate of 1,131 to 1,484. In 2016, the number of available new jobs will range from 1,713 to 2,223. The most needed subspecialties will be breast imaging, general interventional, neuroradiology, general radiology, body imaging, and musculoskeletal. The authors estimated that 1,279 radiologists will be needed in 2019.

As for geography, most of these new jobs will be in the Midwest (26%) and the South (26%). And most will be in private practice (54%), followed by academic and university practices (29%).

The authors noted limitations to the survey. For example, they can't be sure if the data truly represent the types of practice situations for all radiologists. But in any case, there are jobs out there, they wrote.

This 2016 "workforce survey indicates an improved outlook for radiologists looking for new jobs," they concluded.


On the flip side new programs continue to emerge. Methodist in Houston has apparently started a new DR program.
http://www.houstonmethodist.org/edu...-residency/message-from-the-program-director/

UT Houston has 14 residents and Baylor-Houston has 12. Thats already over 100 radiology residents at any given time at the Texas Medical Center.

Apparently they need more.

 

[DrBowtie]

Job market is very strong this year. Many fellows at my programs have locked down jobs already. Didn't happen in prior years until well into winter

Some people are locking stuff up as early as PGY5. Things are definitely getting better.

 

[CorneliaSt]

On the flip side new programs continue to emerge. Methodist in Houston has apparently started a new DR program.
http://www.houstonmethodist.org/edu...-residency/message-from-the-program-director/

UT Houston has 14 residents and Baylor-Houston has 12. Thats already over 100 radiology residents at any given time at the Texas Medical Center.

Apparently they need more.

This boggles my mind. I don't understand why they keep opening up new residencies. It seems very shortsighted. Yes the job market is good this year, and it is hard to predict the future demand for radiologists. However, I would guess that in 5-10 years the demand for radiologists slightly decreases with likely A.I developments increasing our efficiency. I could be completely wrong but would think it would still be wise to run at a relative under-supply rather than oversupply of radiologists.

 

[IRorBustguy]

There is no way with the recent Mammo screening literature that's out that mammo will be hot .. but that's just my opinion

 

[tco]

On the flip side new programs continue to emerge. Methodist in Houston has apparently started a new DR program.
http://www.houstonmethodist.org/edu...-residency/message-from-the-program-director/

UT Houston has 14 residents and Baylor-Houston has 12. Thats already over 100 radiology residents at any given time at the Texas Medical Center.

Apparently they need more.

I can assure you, we need many more. There are currently two level 1 trauma centers in the city, with 4 million people in Houston proper. So, we're already doing the work of 2 level 1 centers each.

Overnight at Hermann, our residents often dictate full reports on 120-150 studies. Typically, a little under half of those are cross sectional. This is while covering inpatient studies with prelim reads. We can't double up coverage because of our already night float heavy schedule, covering four hospitals. We actually need more residents to be able to do that. Anyway, don't want to take this boat too far off course, but take a look at total volume of patients that we see, and you'll understand why we need more residents in the TMC.

With that said, I don't understand opening a new program. It's going to go through growing pains, and it will be at least 3 years before those residents can contribute anything of value. For any residents wanting to go there - you're going to have the best cafeteria in the TMC. 🙂

 

[deleted564680]

I can assure you, we need many more. There are currently two level 1 trauma centers in the city, with 4 million people in Houston proper. So, we're already doing the work of 2 level 1 centers each.

Overnight at Hermann, our residents often dictate full reports on 120-150 studies. Typically, a little under half of those are cross sectional. This is while covering inpatient studies with prelim reads. We can't double up coverage because of our already night float heavy schedule, covering four hospitals. We actually need more residents to be able to do that. Anyway, don't want to take this boat too far off course, but take a look at total volume of patients that we see, and you'll understand why we need more residents in the TMC.

With that said, I don't understand opening a new program. It's going to go through growing pains, and it will be at least 3 years before those residents can contribute anything of value. For any residents wanting to go there - you're going to have the best cafeteria in the TMC. 🙂

Why not hire more attendings instead?

 

[Fab5Hill33]

Cubsfan10 is spot on. Case volume at a particular hospital is no justification for increasing diagnostic radiology residency positions.

You could solve the issue of being overworked or needing more call coverage by just hiring a half dozen radiologists. 1) This would improve the job market for all 2) Solve your workforce issue for the next 20-30 years and 3) You would get more board-eligible/board-certified physicians reading films rather than residents which should be better for patient care.

Instead you're going to NOT enlarge the job pool and, instead, churn out more trainees and effectively hurt the job market for graduates and practicing radiologists alike. And why? Presumably because they think residents are cheaper labor than BE/BC radiologists.

It's great the job market is improving, but we are not in a position to increase graduating residents. Shame on any hospital that is increasing it's complement of residents.

 

[deleted116380]

Why not hire more attendings instead?

Because it's not only cheaper in the short term, but easier to get a resident to work all those calls. Recruiting an attending will cost more and a lot don't want to work nights, evenings, and weekends. Get a resident(s) that cost less and are required to work those.

 

[Gadofosveset]

Poor metrics are part of the problem.

Consider two programs: A and B
Program A hires more BE/BC radiologists to cover the volume.
Program B adds more residents.

Academic program productivity is measured in terms of RVU/FTE, and they compare themselves among "sister institutions". Adding FTEs will look like the program is becoming less productive. Numbers of trainees are not accounted for.

Who cares? Academic center administrators. Very much. Various carrots and sticks are rationalized based on these ratios. At a system-wide level, B will get rewarded, A will look inefficient.

That doesn't mean that the ratio is good indicator. The equation is more complicated, and trainees aren't so much cheaper when you factor in various intangibles. "Branding" is important too, hiring a bunch of low quality rads "dilutes" the quality of the academic rads reports, and, frankly, many 3rd/4th year rads are much better / care more than a low quality hire. And then it's hard to attract rads to an academic salary. It's a circular problem, but to me, a few more rads hires makes sense over more residents for the long term. With 24/7 attending coverage, the trend is toward more hires anyway... but then this hurts resident autonomy. It would be nice if there was an easy solution. More nuanced metrics would help.

 

[tco]

Cubsfan10 is spot on. Case volume at a particular hospital is no justification for increasing diagnostic radiology residency positions.

You could solve the issue of being overworked or needing more call coverage by just hiring a half dozen radiologists. 1) This would improve the job market for all 2) Solve your workforce issue for the next 20-30 years and 3) You would get more board-eligible/board-certified physicians reading films rather than residents which should be better for patient care.

Instead you're going to NOT enlarge the job pool and, instead, churn out more trainees and effectively hurt the job market for graduates and practicing radiologists alike. And why? Presumably because they think residents are cheaper labor than BE/BC radiologists.

It's great the job market is improving, but we are not in a position to increase graduating residents. Shame on any hospital that is increasing it's complement of residents.

This is a pretty naive outlook on the way the system works.

You make a lot of assumptions with your post, namely that it's easy to hire academic Radiologists.

It's much easier to increase the number of residents. It's much easier for them to prelim studies overnight, and cheaper to have subspecialty "home call." That's the model we use, and I'm sure it's for financial reasons alone. No one cares about what's right. They care about what's fiscally right.

 

[maxxor]

This is a pretty naive outlook on the way the system works.

You make a lot of assumptions with your post, namely that it's easy to hire academic Radiologists.

It's much easier to increase the number of residents. It's much easier for them to prelim studies overnight, and cheaper to have subspecialty "home call." That's the model we use, and I'm sure it's for financial reasons alone. No one cares about what's right. They care about what's fiscally right.

I'd be tempted to agree with you, but I see the same nonsense with my program in the northeast.

They'd rather expand fellowship spots so much that there aren't enough workstations than hire 3 more attendings to replace the 3 FTEs worth of people that left in the past year. There are TONS of fellows that would LOVE to stay, but there's no job openings. The divisions aren't hiring; they're expanding training programs.

 

[deleted116380]

This is a pretty naive outlook on the way the system works.

You make a lot of assumptions with your post, namely that it's easy to hire academic Radiologists.

It's much easier to increase the number of residents. It's much easier for them to prelim studies overnight, and cheaper to have subspecialty "home call." That's the model we use, and I'm sure it's for financial reasons alone. No one cares about what's right. They care about what's fiscally right.

+1

The entire "home call" thing is a joke. I don't know anyone at my program that ever called the attending when on call. It's cheaper to get a fellow or resident to work call since they can't just quit their job and go elsewhere than to get an attending that costs much more money to come in and work a shift they don't want to.

 

[Fab5Hill33]

I'm not saying it isn't cheaper. On the contrary, I completely agree that residents are relatively cheap. And many programs use them like cheap labor. It doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean we can't speak out about it.

Hiring academic radiologists is not difficult. The market for academics is quite strong. I can't speak to your hospital specifically, but many grads - whether they have an academic bent or not - see stability in academics. Also consider that the traditionally lucrative private practices are becoming more scarce. Back in the day private practice might get paid double or triple what academics made. Now it's more like 50% or 75% more