TY - JOUR
T1 - Radiologists' performance and their enjoyment of interpreting screening mammograms
AU - Geller, Berta M.
AU - Bowles, Erin J.A.
AU - Sohng, Hee Yon
AU - Brenner, R. James
AU - Miglioretti, Diana L.
AU - Carney, Patricia A.
AU - Elmore, Joann G.
PY - 2009/2
Y1 - 2009/2
N2 - OBJECTIVE. One might speculate that radiologists who enjoy mammography may exhibit better performance than radiologists who do not. MATERIALS AND METHODS. One hundred thirty-one radiologists at three Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC) registries completed a survey about their characteristics, clinical practices, and attitudes related to screening mammography. Survey results were linked with BCSC performance data for 662,084 screening and 33,977 diagnostic mammograms. Using logistic regression, we modeled the odds of an abnormal interpretation, cancer detection, sensitivity, and specificity among radiologists who reported they enjoy interpreting screening mammograms compared with those who do not. RESULTS. Overall, 44.3% of radiologists reported not enjoying interpreting screening mammograms. Radiologists who reported enjoying interpreting screening mammograms were more likely to be women, spend at least 20% of their time in breast imaging, have a primary academic affiliation, read more than 2,000 mammograms per year, and be salaried. Enjoyment was not associated with screening mammography performance. Among diagnostic mammograms, there was a significant increase in sensitivity among radiologists who reported enjoyment (85.2%) compared with those who did not (78.2%). In models adjusting for radiologist characteristics, similar trends were found; however, no statistically significant associations remained. CONCLUSION. Almost one half of radiologists actively interpreting mammograms do not enjoy that part of their job. Once we adjusted for radiologist and patient characteristics, we found that reported enjoyment was not related to performance in our study, although suggestive trends were noted.
AB - OBJECTIVE. One might speculate that radiologists who enjoy mammography may exhibit better performance than radiologists who do not. MATERIALS AND METHODS. One hundred thirty-one radiologists at three Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC) registries completed a survey about their characteristics, clinical practices, and attitudes related to screening mammography. Survey results were linked with BCSC performance data for 662,084 screening and 33,977 diagnostic mammograms. Using logistic regression, we modeled the odds of an abnormal interpretation, cancer detection, sensitivity, and specificity among radiologists who reported they enjoy interpreting screening mammograms compared with those who do not. RESULTS. Overall, 44.3% of radiologists reported not enjoying interpreting screening mammograms. Radiologists who reported enjoying interpreting screening mammograms were more likely to be women, spend at least 20% of their time in breast imaging, have a primary academic affiliation, read more than 2,000 mammograms per year, and be salaried. Enjoyment was not associated with screening mammography performance. Among diagnostic mammograms, there was a significant increase in sensitivity among radiologists who reported enjoyment (85.2%) compared with those who did not (78.2%). In models adjusting for radiologist characteristics, similar trends were found; however, no statistically significant associations remained. CONCLUSION. Almost one half of radiologists actively interpreting mammograms do not enjoy that part of their job. Once we adjusted for radiologist and patient characteristics, we found that reported enjoyment was not related to performance in our study, although suggestive trends were noted.
KW - Breast cancer screening
KW - Breast imaging specialists
KW - Mammographers
KW - Practice of radiology
KW - Radiologists
KW - Screening mammography
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U2 - 10.2214/AJR.08.1647
DO - 10.2214/AJR.08.1647
M3 - Article
C2 - 19155395
AN - SCOPUS:59349090308
SN - 0361-803X
VL - 192
SP - 361
EP - 369
JO - American Journal of Roentgenology
JF - American Journal of Roentgenology
IS - 2
ER -