Pediatric interventional radiology workforce in North America: a descriptive analysis of demographics, educational backgrounds and scholarly activities

Background Pediatric interventional radiology has grown as an advanced subspecialty with increased demand, number and complexity of cases, and number of pediatric institutions offering a pediatric interventional radiology service. Despite the overall increase in the number of pediatric interventionalists over the past two decades, there is a heterogeneity in their academic backgrounds and a lack of uniform training pathways. Objective To analyze the demographics, academic backgrounds and scholarly activities of pediatric interventionalists across the United States (U.S.) and Canada. Materials and methods A list of all members of the Society for Pediatric Interventional Radiology was obtained and pediatric interventionalists at academic and private practice institutions in the U.S. and Canada were included. Publicly available online sources were used to gather demographic and educational information about each pediatric interventionalist, which included the online curriculum vitae, the HealthGrades.com and Doximity.com websites, and Elsevier’s Scopus database. Demographic and educational data including age, gender, educational background, additional degrees, academic rank, previous leadership positions, and metrics of scholarly activities were recorded. Fellowships in diagnostic pediatric radiology, adult interventional radiology and/or pediatric interventional radiology were recorded. Mann-Whitney U tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare differences between groups. Results One hundred and twenty-five pediatric interventionalists were included, of whom 24 (19.2%) were female. The mean age was 48.6 years (standard deviation [SD]: 10.6, median: 45 years, range: 36–82 years). There was no statistical difference between median age for male versus female pediatric interventionalists (44.5 years vs. 45 years, P =0.89). A majority of pediatric interventionalists were American medical school graduates (96, 76.8%), while 29 (23.2%) were international medical graduates. Eighty-three percent (104) of the pediatric interventionalists completed diagnostic radiology residency training in the U.S., most commonly at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio (6.4%) and Washington University in St. Louis, MO (5.6%). Among fellowship training, pediatric interventionalists completed a pediatric radiology fellowship (61.6%), adult interventional radiology fellowship (40%) and/or a dedicated pediatric interventional radiology fellowship (57.6%). The mean±SD (median) publications, citations and Hirsch index (h-index) for pediatric interventionalists were 32±45 (12), 68±1,317 (120) and 9±10 (5), respectively. There was a statistically higher number of publications, citations and h-index with increasing academic rank at the assistant, associate and professor levels ( P <0.001 for all groups). International medical graduate pediatric interventionalists had a higher, but not statistically significant, median publication count (26 vs. 11, P =0.0.25), citation count (236 vs. 93, P =0.36) and h-index (9.0 vs. 5, P =0.24) compared to pediatric interventional radiologists from American medical schools. Conclusion Pediatric interventionalists in North America are predominantly male, with about a quarter having graduated from international medical schools. Pediatric radiology fellowship, followed by pediatric interventional radiology fellowship, was the most frequently pursued training pathway.