Radiology Residency Performance Metrics as Predictors of Staff Productivity

Purpose: Performance metrics in radiology residency are widely studied, particularly their correlation to past medical school performance or clinical performance during training. However, little is known about how residency performance translates to attending productivity. The purpose of our study is to evaluate the relationship between radiology residency performance metrics and subsequent attending productivity in graduates who remained at the same institution.

Methods/Materials: This retrospective cohort study included 16 radiologists who completed residency training between 1996 and 2023 and continued as attendings at a single academic medical center. Residency performance metrics included case volume across modalities, clinical evaluations, and in-service examination scores. These were matched to productivity measures during practice. Correlations were analyzed using chi-squared testing and logistic regression models.

Results: Among the metrics assessed, the number of chest radiographs read during residency demonstrated a statistically significant positive association with future staff productivity (p = 0.0190). Other residency performance measures, including exam scores and evaluations, did not show significant correlations with attending productivity.

Conclusions: In this single-center cohort, higher chest radiograph case volumes during residency were associated with greater attending productivity. These findings suggest that specific residency case exposures may serve as predictors of long-term professional output, though larger multi-institutional studies are needed to further validate these results.