Re: civil penalty for medical violation

[William V Lipton <liptonw@dteenergy.com>]

Let's not lose sight of the fact that the incident that started this thread
involved a licensee who failed to perform a required source leak test 4 times!  I
fail to understand how anyone can consider a simple, quick, and inexpensive leak
test as "meaningless forms and repetitive training...", especially when this
source will be applied to a patient's eye.

I also fail to understand how this violation can be characterized as "human
error."

That reminds me of when I worked for a DOE contractor.  I discovered, during an
inspection of an accelerator facility, that the limit switch on a door interlock
had been tampered with so that it would always indicate the door as closed.  When
I reported this to the person in charge, he stated that this was a "housekeeping
problem."

Give me a break.

The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.

Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com


OFFTOWY@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 7/20/2000 11:04:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> csmarcus@ucla.edu writes:
>
> << The new Part 35, which was supposed to be an improvement over the previous
> mess, merely became a mechanism for the NRC staff to ram in all kinds of junk
> that they wanted to put in to INCREASE the nonsense, cost, and senseless
> busywork.  They also concocted a bizarre and vicious structure that de facto
> turns human error into about 3 "willful violations of safety requirements",
> setting up medical entities for a vicious onslaught of NRC propaganda.   >>
>  AND MUCH MORE.
>
> Well, that was refreshing.
>
> While I do not share Carol's apparent enmity toward the NRC, I do think we
> have a professional obligation to address this problem.  It seems to me that
> allowing our attention ("our attention" to include that of both
> licensees/operators and regulators) to be diverted from safety to compliance
> with arbitrary rules without an outcry undermines our ethics and credibility.
>  Every dollar that is spent on meaningless forms and repetitive training is
> one not spent on protecting people from real hazards.  As a result, real
> people get hurt while we engage in navel-gazing.  The system will never be
> perfect, but I think we have gone way over the edge.
>
> So, HPS, EFCOG, NRC, DOE, EPA, AMA, NUMARC, etc., any thoughts?
>
> Lew LaGarde
> offtowy@aol.com
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