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Re: "Becquerels NEVER!", formerly Re: medical misadministration to child
Dear Bill,
I totally support Mike Stabin's stated position. Australia was one of the
first countries to adopt SI units for radiation dose and radioactivity in
1978. Initially it took some adjustment but I now "think" in MBq and have
to do a mental adjustment whenever someone uses mCi.
All the staff that have been trained in the last 20 years were taught using
MBq (and grays and sieverts), so, for example, all the staff in our Nuclear
Medicine Dept refer to MBq without thinking.
It is just a matter of getting everyone to change and minimising the use of
the old unit as much as possible, and you will be surprised how easy the
transfer to the SI units will be.
Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: "William V Lipton" <liptonw@DTEENERGY.COM>
To: "Michael G. Stabin" <michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu>
Cc: <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 9:14 PM
Subject: "Becquerels NEVER!", formerly Re: medical misadministration to
child
> There are three reasons we should stay with the traditional units:
>
> 1. They're better: The traditional units are based on real quantities,
e.g., a
> Ci is a gram of radium. They thus tend to be more intuitive: a uCi is a
small
> quantity of radioactive material, a mCi is a medium quantity, and a Ci is
a
> lot. A mrad is a small dose, a rad is a significant dose, and multiple
rads are
> serious. You tend not to need as many prefixes. It's much harder to
relate to
> a MBq.
>
> 2. It would be time consuming and expensive to convert. I hate to think
of the
> thousands of meter dials that would have to be changed, the thousands of
> procedures that would have to be rewritten, and the thousands of hours of
> training required to implement SI at our nuclear power plants. Any
reasonable
> cost versus benefit analysis would tell you, "no way."
>
> 3. It would create a human factors disaster. If professional hp's make
> mistakes in conversion, how can we expect our employees to suddenly switch
to a
> new system. It's the equivalent of saying that, starting tomorrow,
everyone
> should drive on the left side of the road. Any reasonable risk versus
benefit
> analysis would tell you, "no way."
>
> If America always went along with "the rest of the world," Sadam Hussein
would
> still be making WMD's and gassing his own people.
>
> The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
> It's not about dose, it's about trust.
> Curies forever.
>
> Bill Lipton
> liptonw@dteenergy.com
>
> "Michael G. Stabin" wrote:
>
> > From: "William V Lipton"
> > > This very common error is why I am so much against forcing SI units
onto
> > operational hp's.
> > > Curies forever, Becquerels NEVER.
> >
> > It's the conversions *between* unit systems that cause problems, and
will
> > cause more and more problems as the US refuses to join the rest of the
world
> > and use SI. And then *within* a unit system, what is easier to remember,
1
> > dis/s or 3.7x10^10 dis/s? What is easier to convert, 1 liter = 1000 ml
or 1
> > qt = 32 oz, 1 km = 1000 m or 1 mi = 5280 ft, etc.? Switching to SI and
> > allowing these clumsy units to disappear in the rear view mirror is
clearly
> > in the best interests of the workers and patients we are trying to
protect.
> > Continuing to resist joining the world scientific community and doing
these
> > conversions between unit systems will certainly result in more
> > miscalculations, on that we can agree.
> >
> > 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
> > Pager (615) 835-5153
> > e-mail michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu
> > internet www.doseinfo-radar.com
> >
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>
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