An opportunity for radiology: recommendations from the educational summit.

Introduction In my perspective article entitled An Opportunity for Radiology, published in the February 2006 issue of Radiology (Ref), I suggest that radiologists have three principal attributes (clinical acumen, mastery of technology, and dedication to safety and quality) that characterize the practice of their discipline, and that serve as a barrier to intrusion into the practice by other medical specialties. I also suggested that the first and third of these attributes, clinical acumen and dedication to safety and quality, are derivatives of the second attribute, mastery of technology. I then make the case that the technology of radiology cannot be mastered without a firm grasp of the physics principles and applications underlying the technology. Finally, in the article I explore the divergence between the expanding complexity of technology in radiology, and the diminished time and effort radiologists in training devote to understanding physics and its integration into the technologies so important to the practice of radiology. This divergence exposes radiology to the risk of usurpation of radiological procedures (at least those that provide a positive net income) by other specialists who control the patients needing the procedures. The Radiology paper ends with a proposal to revamp the education and certification of radiologists in order to reverse the divergence between physics education in radiology and the complexity of technologies used in the practice of radiology. This proposal is intended to convert divergence into convergence, so that radiologists entering the profession would be able to exert mastery over the technologies they employ in the service of patients.