A cross-sectional review on the demographics and characteristics of interventional radiology residency program directors in the United States

Abstract

Program directors (PDs) oversee training and generously provide their time to mentorship. Cultural competency and diverse mentorship may better prepare doctors while increasing student interest. This study examines PD demographic data in IR, noting changes from 2020 to 2023. A list of IR PDs for IR programs was obtained from the ACGME. Duplicates were removed. Public websites were searched to collect age, sex, ethnicity, training, and research metrics (RM). Descriptive statistics were made for demographic data and analyzed. There were 114 unique IR PDs. By sex, 18.4 % were female. Mean age was 42.7. Of the 114, 79 had ethnic data, the most common being non-Hispanic white (54.5 %) and the least common were Hispanic (2.5 %) and Black (3.5 %). Only 2.6 % held DO degrees. In 2020, 12 % of PDs were female. In 2019, 17.8 % of trainees were female and 11.3 % were ethnicities under-represented in medicine (3.1 % Black, 8.2 % Hispanic). From 2020 to 2023, the proportion of women PDs increased by 6.4 % surpassing 2019′s 17.8 % of female trainees. Strictly comparing URM, the 7.7 % PDs has not yet met 2019′s 11.3 % of URM IR trainees. However, diversity has increased as Asian and Middle Eastern PDs account for 37.2 %, a greater than 10 % increase from 2019′s trainees. PD diversity may reflect trends in overall IR diversity. The increase in diverse PDs thus far is promising. Increased PD diversity may garner diverse student interest and provide better trained physicians.