The Radiology Review Top Radiology Programs in the United States
2021 Radiology Department Research Rankings:
Research productivity score shown on right. Methods described below.
To compare to 2020 rankings click here.
1. Massachusetts General Hospital
12.6359359
2. University of Pennsylvania
7.273347
3. University of California San Francisco
6.31614881
4. Stanford University
6.0824166
5. Washington University in St. Louis/Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology
3.55286279
6. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
2.95578552
7. Johns Hopkins
2.86157359
8. Mayo Clinic
2.35295792
9. Brigham and Women’s Hospital
2.16165543
10. New York University
1.95114128
11. Yale University
1.91902751
12. University of Michigan
1.48311813
13, University of Minnesota
1.40320287
14. University of Washington
1.40261612
15. University of California San Diego
1.1809673
16. Weill Medical College of Cornell University
1.00435053
17. Vanderbilt University
0.95245257
18. Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai
0.9050524
19. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
0.8771594
20. Columbia University
0.79402165
21. MD Anderson Cancer Center
0.78130308
22. Moffitt Cancer Center
0.64568271
23. University of Wisconsin
0.64383072
24. Duke University
0.6135568
25. University of Utah
0.56547954
26. University of Maryland
0.52673037
27. University of North Carolina
0.5050827
28. Indiana University
0.47956743
29. University of California Davis
0.46598973
30. Wake Forest University
0.43330035
31. Northwestern University
0.42527631
32. UT Southwestern Medical Center
0.4244207
33. University of Iowa
0.4212357
34. University of Virginia
0.406146
35. University of California Los Angeles
0.4028228
36. University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
0.33964722
37. Thomas Jefferson University/Sidney Kimmel Medical College
0.33139267
38. Emory University
0.276075
39. University of Massachusetts
0.27270309
40. University of Arizona
0.26037333
41. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
0.2462528
42. Case Western University
0.23692662
43. Ohio State University
0.21994416
44. SUNY Stony Brook
0.19423236
45. Michigan State University
0.18205626
46. University of Colorado
0.117381
47. University of Alabama
0.10089129
48. Medical College of Wisconsin
0.09361722
49. University of Miami
0.0898074
50. University of California Irvine
0.08184696
51. Medical University of South Carolina
0.0544314
52. Medical College of Georgia
0.0495906
53. UT San Antonio Medical School
0.04751712
54. University of Cincinnati
0.04724474
55. Pennsylvania State University
0.04377879
56. University of Illinois
0.04292704
57. Tufts Medical Center
0.03829503
58. West Virginia University
0.03690813
59. Dartmouth Medical School
0.03186771
60. Baylor College of Medicine
0.02870241
61. University of Kansas Medical Center
0.02654403
62. Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California
0.02461653
63. Wayne State University
0.02185215
64. UT Houston McGovern Medical School
0.0178583
65. University of Tennessee
0.01652397
66. Oregon Health and Science University
0.01305183
Background: Beyond reported annual NIH research funding few objective measures exist to rank the relative strength of a radiology department in terms of research productivity. Many rankings of radiology residency programs found online are largely subjective and typically the opinion of a single person. As an alternative ranking system, The Radiology Review presents an objective and reproducible measure whereby radiology departments may be ranked.
Method: The Radiology Review ranking system relies on two measures. The first measure is the number of publications in the journal Radiology for the prior calendar year (in this case 2020) for which a first or last author of an original scientific study is a faculty member of a United States academic radiology department. In 2019, Radiology had an impact factor of 2.986 that exceeds nearly all other radiology, nuclear medicine, and imaging journals (https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=2741). Radiology is therefore the pre-eminent research journal for academic radiologists in the United States, at least in the opinion of The Radiology Review. One could argue that a department publishing in Radiology will also be publishing in other leading imaging-based journals. The number of Radiology publications may therefore stand a reasonable surrogate for overall strength in research publications. Note that only hypothesis-driven research articles in Radiology are considered and the many Editorials published in Radiology (or other types of non-research articles including reviews, etc.) were not counted because there is potential for favoritism in regards to who is invited to write an editorial and only article containing hypothesis-testing and description of results were counted. In 2020, there were a number of special research articles pertaining to COVID-19 and these were included for tabulation as long as an article contained hypothesis-testing and description of results.
The second factor that The Radiology Review 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 Radiologypublications available is 2020, average NIH funding for each department from 2017-2019 was considered. This data is provided by The Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research (https://www.acadrad.org/nih-datacollection-project/). Finally, the average NIH funding from 2016-2018 for each department was multiplied by a conversion factor based on number of Radiology first/last author publications in 2020 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
The 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.
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 Radiologypublications. As you can see MGH absolutely crushed it in 2020.
Receiving NIH funding during the years of interest is required to be on this list so if a specific radiology department is not listed, it means that no NIH funding was reported during 2017-2019.
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 exceptional educational and research experiences at any U.S. radiology program. The same is true for faculty in terms of the ability to find outstanding research opportunities wherever one is—opportunity abounds for research in medical imaging. Medical students—use this list with caution when making your rank lists. You could end up at a highly ranked research program and be 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.
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 average multi-year NIH funding and number of Radiology publications for the most-recent completed year. 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.
Provided by Matt Covington, MD, @radrevpodcast and www.theradiologyreview.com. Matt Covington, MD, personally tabulated all first/last author affiliations from Radiology publications in 2020, and calculated these rankings according to the described methods.