Debating the Future of Nuclear Medicine: The Greek Experience

Abstract

TO THE EDITOR: We read with great interest the recent editorial by Graham regarding the progressive staffing shortage experienced by nuclear medicine in the United States (1). As the authors noted, the shortage is associated with inadequate production of well-trained nuclear medicine physicians during the last 2 decades. Interestingly, this workforce problem can be closely linked to a trend in hiring-in both academic programs and the private sector-diagnostic radiologists with minimal nuclear medicine training (1 y) instead of nuclear medicine physicians (1). Consequently, nuclear medicine has been considered a less attractive specialty by medical students, in parallel with a drop in the quality of applicants for nuclear medicine residency.Notably, in some countries, such as Greece, nuclear medicine is a separate discipline, whereas in other parts of the world, such as the United States, nuclear medicine studies can also be performed by diagnostic radiologists. This heterogeneity has been reinforced