Dear AuntMinnie Member,
Do you remember what it was like to apply for your radiology residency? Wouldn't it have been nice to have a step-by-step guide to help you through the process?
The need for better information about radiology residency is why we're launching 6 Steps to Radiology, a new series of articles for medical students on how to apply for radiology residency. Every few months through the 2018-2019 academic year, we'll publish a new article that's specifically timed to help medical students at every stage of the application process.
We're kicking off the series with an article by Dr. Tan-Lucien Mohammed, vice chair of education and radiology residency program director at the University of Florida. He provides a wealth of useful tips for preparing residency applications, from how to write personal statements to the type of photo to include. Check it out by clicking here.
What's more, at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on Monday, June 25, we're hosting a tweetchat in which Dr. Mohammed and a half-dozen other radiology program directors will be available to answer questions about radiology, using the #6StepsToRads hashtag. It will be a great way for medical students to interact directly with some of the best minds in radiology education, so if you know any medical students, let them know about it!
MedPAC proposes 4% payment cut
In other news, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) is proposing a nearly 4% one-time cut in Medicare payments for medical specialties such as radiology, while advocating for a 10% boost for services like patient evaluation and management, typically performed by primary care physicians.
MedPAC suggested the cut is due to what it calls a "passive devaluation" of evaluation and management payments that is seeing specialties like radiology and pathology becoming overvalued. Whether Congress agrees with MedPAC's assessment remains to be seen, however. Learn more by clicking here, or visit our Imaging Leaders Community at leaders.auntminnie.com.
China tariffs get real
Many in radiology had been hoping that the issue of tariffs proposed in April by the Trump administration on goods manufactured in China would have been resolved by now. But the tariffs got a whole lot more real last week, when the administration released its final list of goods that would be slapped with 25% import duties -- and medical imaging scanners remained on the list.
The tariffs are designed to punish China for what the U.S. government says is years of unfair trade practices used by the Chinese government and manufacturers to get a leg up on U.S. competitors. But the brewing trade war threatens to upset the delicate balance of the interconnected global economy, and the impact on the purchasing of medical capital equipment -- with many imaging vendors making systems in China -- is unclear. Learn more by clicking here.
