To see the more recent 2021 rankings click here.
The Radiology Review Top Radiology Programs in the US
2020 Radiology Department Research Rankings:
Research productivity score shown on right. Methods are described below.
1. Massachusetts General Hospital
10.22
2. Stanford
6.14
3. University of Pennsylvania
5.84
4. University of California San Francisco
4.39
5. Johns Hopkins
2.38
6. Washington University in St. Louis/Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology
2.35
7. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
2.26
8. Mayo Clinic
1.91
9. New York University
1.76
10. Brigham and Women’s Hospital
1.73
11. Yale University
1.72
12. University of Michigan
1.2
13. University Of Minnesota
1.01
14. University of California San Diego
1.03
15. University of Washington
0.976
16. University of Pittsburgh
0.861
17. Duke
0.851
18. MD Anderson Cancer Center
0.785
19. Columbia University
0.759
20. Weill Medical College of Cornell University
0.719
21. Moffitt Cancer Center
0.624
22. University of Wisconsin
0.623
23. Vanderbilt University
0.592
24. Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai
0.577
25. University of North Carolina
0.55
26. Northwestern University
0.5
27. Wake Forest University
0.488
28. Indiana University
0.417
29. University of Utah
0.412
30. University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
0.406
31. University of California Los Angeles
0.405
32. University of Maryland
0.399
33. University of Virginia
0.394
34. Case Western Reserve University
0.386
35. University of Iowa
0.369
36. Thomas Jefferson University/Sidney Kimmel Medical College
0.34
37. Emory University
0.312
38. University of California Davis
0.31
39. UT Southwestern Medical Center
0.29
40. University of Massachusetts
0.276
41. University of Arizona
0.248
42. Ohio State University
0.221
43. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
0.186
44. SUNY Stony Brook
0.128
45. Michigan State University
0.119
46. University of Colorado
0.109
47. University of Miami
0.105
48. Medical College of Wisconsin
0.086
49. Medical College of Georgia
0.078
50. UT San Antonio Medical School
0.073
51. University of Alabama
0.061
52. Dartmouth Medical School
0.06
53. Medical University of South Carolina
0.057
54. University of Illinois
0.047
55. University of California Irvine
0.045
56. West Virginia University
0.034
57. Pennsylvania State University
0.029
58. Baylor College of Medicine
0.027
59. UT Houston McGovern Medical School
0.026
60. Wayne State University
0.022
61. University of Cincinnati
0.022
62. Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California
0.018
63. Virginia Commonwealth University
0.01
64. Oregon Health and Science University
0.008
65. Tufts Medical Center
0.007
66. University of Tennessee
0.006
Background: Beyond reported annual NIH research funding there are few objective measures that exist to rank the relative strength of a radiology department in terms of research productivity. Additionally, rankings of radiology residency programs can be found online that are largely subjective and typically the opinion of a single person. As an extension my own research, I developed an objective, reproducible measure whereby radiology departments may be ranked.
Method: This ranking systems relies on two measures. The first measure is the number of publications in the journal Radiology for the prior calendar year (in this case 2019) for which a first or last author of a study is a faculty member at a US academic radiology department. In 2018, Radiology had an impact factor of 3.340 that exceeds nearly all other radiology, nuclear medicine, and imaging journals and is therefore the pre-eminent research journal for academic radiologists in the United States (at least in my opinion). One could argue that a department publishing in Radiology will also be publishing in other leading imaging-based journals and the number of Radioogy publications may be a reasonable surrogate for overall strength in research publications. Yes, for this project two individuals (myself and Sam Zenger, an outstanding future radiology resident), went through every issue of Radiology in 2019, article by article, and tabulated the affiliations for the first/last author for research articles (ie-hypothesis-driven research) only. I did not include the many Editorials that are in Radiology (or other types of non-research articles including letters to the editor) because there is potential for favoritism in regards to who is invited to write an editorial and I was specifically interested in original research articles by which to rank departments.
The second factor that this ranking system considers is the average NIH funding for each radiology department over a 3 year-span preceding the year of Radiology publications.
Because the most recent year of Radiology publications available is 2019, I calculated the average NIH funding for each department from 2016-2018. For this I used the data provided by The Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research (https://www.acadrad.org/nih-ranking-project/).
Finally, I multiplied the average NIH funding from 2016-2018 for each department by a conversion factor based on number of Radiology first/last author publications in 2019 to obtain an overall research productivity score. This conversion factor is as follows:
10+ publications = 1.5
8-9 publications = 1.4
6-7 publications = 1.3
4-5 publications = 1.2
2-3 publications = 1.1
1 publication = 1
0 publications = 0.9
My rationale is that if a department had NIH funding but no subsequent publications in Radiology they would have a deduction of 10% on their final research productivity score. For every 1-2 publications a department’s score will get a boost of 10% up to a maximum of 10 publications. Ten publications was chosen as the top limit as the department with the most publications in 2019 was Massachusetts General Hospital with a total of 10 publications.
Finally, receiving NIH funding during the years of interest is required to be on this list so if your department is not listed, it means that no NIH funding was reported during 2016-2018.
Real Life: In reality, you certainly shouldn’t panic if your department isn’t at the top of the list, or doesn’t make the list at all. Residents can have an absolutely great residency with great educational and research experiences at any program if you are motivated and seek out excellent opportunities. The same is true for faculty as well in terms of finding outstanding opportunities wherever one is. Medical students—use this list with caution when making your rank list. You could end up at a highly ranked research program and be absolutely miserable for 4 years if that program isn’t a good fit for you. I didn’t go to a program at the top of the list for residency and I generally found my residency experience to be fantastic. Do your homework and consider the overall fit of each program with your life goals.
A final note: The name of the department is on the left and the calculated research productivity score is on the right. These scores show an estimate of the magnitude of difference between departments according to NIH funding and subsequent Radiology publications. As you can see MGH absolutely crushed it in 2019.
Is this ranking perfect? Definitely not.
Is this ranking the best that currently exists? Possibly. This is an objective measure that is not based on opinion but on NIH funding and Radiology publications. Read the methods above and you will see that any personal opinion I may have about a program had no bearing on how they are ranked.
I want to acknowledge Sam Zenger, an excellent medical student, who helped with some of the data acquisition for this project.
Courtesy of Matt Covington, MD @mfcovington www.theradiologyreview.com