More people wanting lifestyle (explains surgical decrease and rads increase) plus the switch from EM to radiology seems logical given that both are known to be lifestyle specialties.
Radiology was already becoming competitive again and it’s a very numbers based field. The increase in applications coupled with pass/fail step 1 doesn’t bode well for DOs and low tier MDs applying radiology.
Also, with the increasing cost of living, people are probably drawn to higher paying fields. Before this rampant inflation, 280k was pretty good. Now, it just kind of hits different. For true upper class lifestyle, I would say one needs a total household income of 500k+. That is possible in rads but not a lot of other fields these days.