Research during radiology residency: an educational need, a professional responsibility, and an institutional duty.
Abstract
Research education during radiology residency is often perceived as a secondary task, separate from clinical practice and perhaps even conflicting with it. This opinion paper challenges that dichotomy and argues that research is simultaneously an educational requirement for residents, a professional responsibility for radiologists, and an institutional obligation for the department. Drawing on various sources, including data from Spanish-speaking contexts, this article analyzes how the current system expects research results without providing infrastructure, mentoring, or recognition, and how the most significant barriers are cultural rather than logistical. The position of authors who propose limiting research to residents with “genuine passion” is discussed, recognizing the partial validity of their premises but rejecting their conclusion: the problem is not that residents conduct research, but that they do so without structure or supervision. As an alternative, a model with three stages is proposed. It is argued that, in the context of a specialty increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence, imaging biomarkers, and precision medicine, training radiologists with research skills is not an academic luxury but a requirement for professional sustainability.
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