RE: Fear, etc.

[Karin Gordon <KGordon@exchange.hsc.mb.ca>]

Our city's centralized hospital radiopharmacy used to be on the main floor
of an old hospital building that was otherwise occupied by the psychiatry
department, with a lot of staff members and out-patient clinics, etc.  

Radiation safety concern-wise, no problem with the patients, but a number of
the psychiatry staff were absolutely paranoid about the presence of
radioactivity in their building and some were quite convinced that it had an
effect on their bank cards, etc. 

My peronal thoughts only

Karin Gordon
kgordon@hsc.mb.ca

-----Original Message-----
From: BLHamrick@aol.com [mailto:BLHamrick@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 8:36 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: Fear, etc.


In a message dated 02/14/2000 8:52:17 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
sandyfl@earthlink.net writes:

<< Our job is to protect the public from "real" 
 exposures to radiation and releases of radioactive materials. Dealing 
 with one's fears is a job for psychiatrists and those who deal with 
 social disorders. >>

The problem with this is that, as another poster pointed out, with respect
to 
nuclear issues, psychiatrists are also members of the public and may often 
suffer from the same fears and misinformation as the rest.  If health 
physicists are the only ones that think the maniacal fear of radiation 
exhibited by the public is a "social disorder," then who besides us can lead

the way to dispel the fear?

Barbara Hamrick
BLHamrick@aol.com
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