Re: some details on St. Lucie

["Michael G. Stabin" <michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu>]

> When are we

> as professionals going to stop this madness by simply admitting that there

> are risks associated with this profession



Interesting, this is exactly the phrase used by my friend at St. Lucie

("stop the madness"). We considered shaving our heads and starting a video

training program so that we could retire early. If a 21 mrem exposure is

"risky", then we are all at SEVERE risk from our exposures to natural

background exposures (15 times this value every year of our lives,

cumulative doses around one thousand times this value), and, as Jim

suggested, all radiologists and nuclear medicine physicians would be

considered to be mass murderers. I'm not criticizing Mitchell's comment

here, I'm agreeing that we overreact at times to really trivial exposures.

We should NOT stop monitoring, I'm not saying that, either. I'm just saying

react in proportion to the hazard. If a box of dirty tools falls on the

interstate, you don't need to scramble literally hundreds of emergency

workers and terrorize the public to clean it up. If someone gets a 21 mrem

unplanned exposure, log it, report it, and get back to working on something

of actual significance.



Mike





Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP

Assistant Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences

Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences

Vanderbilt University

1161 21st Avenue South

Nashville, TN 37232-2675

Phone (615) 343-0068

Fax   (615) 322-3764

e-mail     michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu

internet   www.doseinfo-radar.com







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