Emergency radiology in the United States--a stepchild finding its way.

Emergency radiology as an academic discipline and practice activity is clearly recognized as a distinct category within the community of radiologists in the USA. But, its place among the other branches of diagnostic imaging is as an outlier. Emergency radiology is not recognized as a separate course of study in the curriculum of training. It is not a component of the qualifying exam of the American Board of Radiology. It has few fellowships. It has not engendered a specific designation of care personnel for trauma centres. Moreover, its situation with respect to emergency physicians is bound, by neither regulation nor tradition, to be intellectually or physically close. Yet, it is recognized as encompassing an established society of teachers, practitioners and investigators. Its journal is a repository of new knowledge. Thus, it occupies a definitive if still anomalous position in American medicine in general and radiology in particular.