SUMMARYAustralia's resources are finite and limited. Cash outlays by the government for health care have risen at a rate which cannot continue indefinitely as an increasing share of the national purse. It follows that as a profession, medical practitioners cannot do everything scientifically possible for everyone everywhere. New advances are seen to require new skills and techniques as much as new high cost gadgets.Radiology is a particularly costly sub‐speciality which is almost uniquely capital intensive. The present danger is that radiologists are coming to be viewed as professionals engaged in a conspicuous consumption of scarce national resources while morbidity and mortality figures are not showing an improvement remotely proportionate to the increased expenditure. Examples of over use of resources together with private investment in high cost technology are outlined, and issues of accountability and of the need for clearly stated goals are discussed.A role for the Royal Australasian College of Radiologists in monitoring the efficiency, diagnostic yield and the general effectiveness of radiological examinations is considered. If organised medicine is found unequal to the task
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