Many of the old stereotypes of radiologists as solitary people motivated by money, working in a dark room and having no relationship with the patient, persist among today's generation of medical students, particularly women, French researchers have reported.
"This negative vision of the 'lonely radiologists' probably also worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic context of radiological procedures requested and the related risk," noted first author Dr. Ugo Pirocca, from the Department of Radiology at Besançon University Hospital, and colleagues. "This pandemic may therefore have further isolated radiologists, who were among the most front-line care professionals."
Decline in appeal of radiology
The multidisciplinary group of authors, whose findings were published in an article posted by the European Journal of Radiology on 26 September, were initially concerned by evidence that radiology has become a less popular choice among medical students over recent years.
In France, at the end of the sixth year of their studies, medical students take a national competition board called the Examen Classant National (ECN). At the end of the ECN, students choose a specialty and a city for their internship. Radiology has steadily declined in the ECN ratings, being ranked 2781/7700 in 2016 and then 3656/8814 in 2022, according to figures for median-choice rankings obtained from the National Control Center (Centre National de Gestion, CNG), they explained.
This situation prompted the researchers to conduct a nationwide web-based survey. Their central aim was to better understand what radiology needs to do to "debunk stereotypes."
Logistical details
The survey was sent to members of the French National Association of Medical Residents (InterSyndicale Nationale des Internes, ISNI) in March 2021, and it remained open for five weeks.
A total of 419 responses were received. Of the respondents, 32% were students, 46% residents, and 22% were physicians. Half of the respondents were between 23 and 27 years old, and 72% were women.
The respondents came from every region of mainland France (only Antilles-Guyana had no response) and all specialties, according to the authors. There was no bias due to an over-representation of radiologists; 22 respondents were radiologists, representing just over 5% of the total.
Among the respondents, 117 (28%) said they'd had professional experience during hospital rotations in a radiology department, and 33 (8%) had a family member who was a radiologist.
The five words cited most frequently by respondents were "money" (129 times), "no doctor-patient relationship" (84), "computer" (60), "imaging" (52), and "darkness" (51).
"Maybe the respondents thought that the radiologists earned too much money or that radiologists were only interested in money," Dr. Pirocca and colleagues stated. "AI seemed to be viewed negatively, as is the case in other international studies, which have highlighted fear of the replacement of radiologists by AI, especially among medical students."
Need for action
Radiologists must communicate better with other physicians and medical students that AI can be used to help radiologists, and it would also be useful to introduce early participation in radiology during an internship or residency, they wrote, adding that more attention needs to be given to the views and needs of women, who had a slightly more negative perception of radiologists.
Previous studies have found that many women perceive there is a lack of a patient-radiologist relationship, as well as a shortage of female role models, and these tend to be the main reasons why women don't choose radiology. Such issues may also have been significant factors in the French survey, the researchers noted.The French Society of Radiology (SFR) has so far issued no response to the survey findings. "We hope for a future reaction from the authorities who represent radiologists in France," corresponding author Dr. Nawale Hadouiri, a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist and PhD student at Dijon University Hospital, told AuntMinnieEurope.com.
Dr. Hadouiri said that Dr. Pirocca now plans to give an oral presentation on this topic at next year's French national radiology congress, JFR 2024. She noted that the survey is part of a larger project, StEreotypes Specialties Among Medical class (SESAME), the aim of which is to describe stereotypes and social representations of specialist physicians from all fields of medicine. The team is evaluating more precisely potential differences in attractiveness between the various specialties and wants to better understand how medical students choose their specialty for residency.
You can read the European Journal of Radiology article-in-press here.
