Increased individual workload for nuclear medicine physicians over the past years: 2008-2023 data from The Netherlands

To investigate temporal trends in the individual workload of nuclear medicine physicians at a large tertiary care academic center between 2008 and 2023. This study analyzed the reporting workload of nuclear medicine physicians in a large tertiary care academic center in The Netherlands on 36 unique (randomly sampled) calendar days, for each year between 2008 and 2023. The average daily departmental workload (measured with relative value units) was calculated for each year between 2008 and 2023. The individual workload was calculated by dividing the average daily departmental workload in each year by the available full-time equivalent nuclear medicine physicians in each year. Mann-Kendall tests were used to assess for any temporal monotonic trends in individual workload and types of nuclear medicine procedures performed. Individual workload increased significantly between 2008 and 2023 (Mann-Kendall tau of 0.611, P = 0.001). Individual workload in 2023 was 86% higher than in 2008. The use of positron emission tomography (PET) increased significantly (Mann-Kendall tau of 0.912, P