Physician attitudes toward the competence of general diagnostic radiologists: survey and implications

Responses to a questionnaire were obtained from 1,539 physicians in 15 medical specialties to measure their attitudes toward general diagnostic radiologists in regard to their medical knowledge and professional competence as consultants. The data were evaluated in terms of the demographic profile of the respondents. Among the detailed results obtained, it was determined that only 8.1% of all physicians believe general diagnostic radiologists are poorly informed about disease processes, but 25% believe that these radiologists need more subspecialty training to be valuable as consultants to them. Physicians who do their own radiographic/sonographic examinations believe general diagnostic radiologists to be unimportant twice as often as do physicians who refer their patients to radiologists (28.2% vs. 14.5%). Most physicians (78%) believe that diagnostic radiologists perform unique functions in hospitals, while only 38% believe this to be true in the office setting. Consistent with this is that physicians practicing primarily in hospitals believe diagnostic radiologists need more training than do the primarily office-based physicians (29.6% vs. 16.8%). Of the specialists surveyed, orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, cardiologists, and neurologists consistently had the lowest opinion of general diagnostic radiologists as consultants. In each of these specialties, less than 30% believed that general diagnostic radiologists are indispensable in the hospital setting. Also, younger (less than 45 years) physicians feel less dependent on general diagnostic radiologists than do older physicians. For example, twice as many younger physicians (17.3% vs. 7.9%) believe that diagnostic radiologists perform few or no unique functions which they cannot do themselves.