“Such an abundance of training pathways, in combination with often disjointed publicly available information regarding their differences, has been described as confusing for physicians and medical students alike,” Yoo et al. explained.
“Online information from (nuclear medicine and nuclear radiology) NM/NR websites may play a significant role in not only clarifying the dynamic changes in the field and its training pathways, but also in attracting prospective applicants to the discipline altogether,” they added.
In order to understand workforce trends, the team looked at data from the 2017 American College of Radiology Commission on Human Resources Workforce Survey. They also reviewed board certification training pathway data and accredited nuclear medicine residency or nuclear radiology fellowship training websites to determine their “comprehensiveness.”
Over the last 10 years, the researchers noted, traditional training pathways for nuclear medicine and radiology programs have declined by 25%, while the number of trainees in the subspecialties has fallen by more than half.