Characteristics and distribution of nuclear medicine physicians.

OBJECTIVES

The authors examined the characteristics and distribution of physicians certified by The American Board of Nuclear Medicine (ABNM).

METHODS

Three thousand seven hundred twenty-nine physicians were certified by the ABNM by 1989, and information on 3,389 physicians was obtained for this study from available databases.

RESULTS

The age distribution shows 24% (793) of patients were 60 years of age or older; 17% (560) were 55 to 59 years of age; and 21% (714) were 50 to 54 years of age. The average rate of physicians certified by the ABNM was 67.8 annually over the most recent 5 years. Those physicians with additional board certification in radiology, internal medicine, and pathology also were examined. The radiology/nuclear medicine group demonstrated the largest change, with 56.7% having dual certification in the initial 6 years of the ABNM and only 26.4% in the most recent 6 years. The ratio of state population to the number of certified nuclear medicine physicians within the state was found to vary from 30,000:1 in the District of Columbia to 370,000:1 in New Hampshire.

CONCLUSIONS

There will be a decline, and possibly a shortage, of comprehensively trained nuclear medicine physicians over the next 10 to 20 years. There is also a decreasing trend of American Board of Radiology (ABR) certification associated with ABNM certification. In addition, there is an uneven distribution of ABNM-certified physicians.