[Analysis of the actual number of physicians in radiotherapy units in Germany].

Background: Physician workload directly influences the ability of an institution to provide high standards in radiotherapy services.

Material And Methods: Data of 189 radiotherapy units of the DEGRO survey 2000 complemented and corrected (Table 1) are analyzed with simple and multiple linear regression (models in Table 2).

Results: In 21 private radiotherapy facilities actual numbers of physicians split up in 0.19 for every 1,000 megavoltage courses per year, 1.8 per megavoltage unit, 0.68 for every ten beds for inpatients minus 0.67 or plus 1.2 physicians per facility providing radiotherapy only or combined with other services, respectively. Radiotherapy units in hospitals were analyzed in two groups, i. e. radiotherapy only (n = 69) or in combination with other services (n = 59). In the latter, reported numbers of physicians split up in 3.2 for every 1,000 megavoltage courses per year, minus 0.13 per megavoltage unit, 0.87 for every ten beds for inpatients, plus 2.2 per facility. Units providing radiotherapy only had 0.86 physicians for every 1,000 megavoltage courses per year plus 1.0 per megavoltage unit plus 0.97 for every ten beds plus 1.0 per facility. In 36 radiotherapy university clinics actual numbers of physicians split up in 2.4 for every 1,000 megavoltage courses per year, 1.7 per megavoltage unit, 0.86 for every ten beds for inpatients, plus 1.5 per clinic. For confidence limits see Table 3, for results of univariate analysis Figure 1 and 2.

Conclusion: In German radiotherapy facilities, physician workload varies considerably. It exceeds that reported for the USA by a substantial margin.