"Where are They Now?": A Single Institution's 10-Years Experience with an Integrated Nuclear Radiology Fellowship

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine

Background:

• Increasing demand for nuclear medicine (NM) physicians.
• Limited assessment of integrated nuclear radiology (NR) pathways' contribution to the NM workforce.
• Need to evaluate career outcomes of NR fellowship graduates.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the career trajectories of integrated NR program graduates.
• To determine if the pathway produces practicing NM-capable clinicians.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of the 16-month integrated NR fellowship.

Main Methods:

• Survey of all 25 graduates from a single institution's 16-month integrated NR fellowship (2014-2024).
• 100% response rate achieved for voluntary, IRB-approved survey.
• Data collected on training, subspecialty certification, and current practice.

Main Results:

• 84% of graduates obtained or plan to obtain NR subspecialty certification.
• 77% of practicing radiologists are active in Nuclear Radiology.
• Graduates actively read PET/CT, general NM, cardiac NM, and prescribe radiopharmaceutical therapy.
• 14 graduates believe they would not practice NR without the fellowship.

Conclusions:

• The integrated NR pathway demonstrates a high rate of graduates practicing nuclear medicine.
• The pathway effectively converts trainees to NR practice, suggesting it's a viable solution for workforce expansion.
• Graduates report high satisfaction and a significant number would not practice NR without this integrated training.