The Current State of NIH Funding of Research in Diagnostic Radiology at U.S. Medical Schools

The research grant awards data for 2003 published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were analyzed to obtain a snapshot of the current state of diagnostic radiology research in US medical schools. By considering awards to diagnostic radiology departments only, the authors show that NIH departmental rankings that combine diagnostic and therapeutic radiology departments together are deceptive for researchers interested primarily in diagnostic radiology. For each diagnostic radiology grant analyzed, the authors examined the source of funding, the primary modality involved in the research, the activity classification of the grant, and the degree of the associated principal investigator. Furthermore, the authors followed the funding for medical school radiology departments over the past several years to see if it kept up with the overall NIH budget. The data show that radiology research has exceeded the growth in academic medical research in general and highlight some areas of underfunded research.