radiologist burnout Archives - The Imaging Wire

Physician burnout rates continue to drop after peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic, but radiology remains one of the medical specialties with the worst burnout problem. That’s according to a new AMA survey that underscores a continuing trend toward improved physician satisfaction.

Physician burnout has been a cause of concern for the past decade. Burnout rates accelerated dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic as doctors struggled with long hours and crushing patient volume.

But the problem appears to be easing over time, with both peer-review studies and industry surveys revealing lower burnout levels.

The new AMA survey confirms the trend. The organization surveyed 19k U.S. physicians throughout 2025, finding…

An overall physician burnout rate of 42% in 2025, down compared to 2024 (43%) and 2023 (48%), and sharply down from the peak in 2021 (63%).
Physician job satisfaction rose to 77%, stable compared to 2024 (77%) and up compared to 2023 (72%) and 2022 (68%).
The burnout rate in radiology was 45%, making it the fifth-worst among specialties after emergency medicine (50%), urological surgery (50%), hematology/oncology (49%), and OB/GYN (46%).

How well do the AMA’s numbers reflect radiology’s reality?

Unfortunately, the AMA hasn’t included radiology-specific numbers in previous years of its survey, making it hard to directly compare year-over-year changes.

But in a recent thread on radiology bulletin board RadHQ.net, members anecdotally reported that burnout is becoming less prominent for radiologists, for several reasons…

Higher compensation that makes radiologists feel more valued.
More flexible arrangements – like teleradiology – that support working from home or more flexible shifts.
Increased job mobility due to the radiologist shortage, with the flexibility to leave toxic practices for new ones.

The Takeaway

So which is it – is radiology burnout higher than other specialties, or is it declining? Ironically, both statements could be true – while radiologist burnout remains high relative to other physicians, at least it’s trending in the right direction.

The chance that a radiologist would quit their job for a new one doubled over a recent 10-year period. And a new JACR study identifies the exact point in terms of case workload when radiologists are most likely to leave.

The burnout epidemic among healthcare professionals has been closely tied to workload, which has been rising steadily due to growing patient volumes and ongoing staff shortages.

In radiology, the problem has been exacerbated as radiologists are reading more images (from more complex cases) while the number of new radiologists being trained in residency programs remains static.

In the new paper, researchers from the ACR’s Neiman HPI investigated changes in radiologist turnover from 2013 to 2022 and how they compared with workload as measured by work relative value units, the most standard measure of physician productivity.

They analyzed data on services provided by 39.4k unique radiologists representing 280.7k radiologist-years over the study period, then correlated that with data on how often radiologists changed practices.

Researchers found…

The radiologist turnover rate increased 61% (from 5.3% to 8.5%).
Odds of radiologist turnover were nearly 2X in 2022 versus 2013 (OR = 1.96).
And were 6% higher for female radiologists and 12% higher for metropolitan versus nonmetropolitan radiologists.
While academic radiologists had 9% lower turnover odds than nonacademic imagers.

But what about the connection between workload and turnover? This is where the study gets interesting, as the researchers found a U-shaped relationship between the two.

At low wRVU levels, turnover tended to drop as workload went up, perhaps as radiologists found more job satisfaction (and maybe higher pay) with more work to do.

But this changed once wRVUs hit a threshold, and turnover began rising as well, apparently as radiologists found themselves overworked. This inflection point differed for different types of radiologists…

Occurring at 12.9k wRVUs for all radiologists.
But at 13.4k wRVUs for private-practice radiologists.
And only 8.8k wRVUs for academic radiologists.

The 34% lower wRVU threshold for academic radiologists could be because many have prioritized research and teaching, and see a growing clinical care workload as a distraction without commensurate compensation.

The Takeaway

The new study offers a fascinating look at the forces driving when and why radiologists quit, and provides a new benchmark showing precisely where the breaking point is for most radiologists. Let’s hope this data is put to good use.

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