[Fwd: RE: An HP Position is Open in Texas[LicenseReviewer,MedicalandAcademic Licensing Program]]

[William V Lipton <liptonw@DTEENERGY.COM>]

The following is posted with the permission of the author.

Bill





-------- Original Message --------

From: "George J. Vargo" <vargo@physicist.net>

Subject: RE: An HP Position is Open in Texas

[LicenseReviewer,MedicalandAcademic Licensing Program]

To: 'William V Lipton' <liptonw@DTEENERGY.COM>



Bill,



You hit on a critical point that many of us have made over the last few

years.  A profession has several defining characteristics:

1)  Its practitioners are recognized by the public or served community

as

being uniquely qualified to the exclusion of others

2)  The profession has minimum criteria and standards for its

practitioners

(i.e., academic standards, minimum experience, preceptorship,

internship,

residency, certification, etc.)

3)  The profession has standards for professional practice (e.g., cannon

of

ethics, code of conduct, etc.)

4)  The profession is self-promoting (this is different from

self-serving)

and strives to maintain and improve the competence of its practitioners

5)  The profession has a system of self-regulation, including censure or

expulsion, to enforce its standards of professional practice



>From this list, it is obvious that the physician, lawyer, pharmacist,

nurse,

engineer, and teacher are all members of a profession.  As long as

anybody

can call themselves a health physicist, we are at best, members of an

occupation, and not a profession.  While the practice of many

professions

are also regulated by the states, state licensure is intended to merely

protect the public from unqualified or incompetent practitioners.  For

example, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania implemented licensing of

persons

who offer radon testing services to protect the public from fraudulent

testing (e.g., mayonnaise jar and CDV-715).  That's a practice or

service,

certainly not a profession.



As an additional reference, I would refer you to a paper by

distinguished

health physicist, educator, and academic Paul Ziemer, "Preparation for

Professionalism", published in Health Physics circa 1989-1990.  I

usually

have a copy of it on my desk, but cannot find it just now.  It's well

worth

the read.  Paul's conclusion is that health physics has begun to develop

some characteristics of a profession, but we have a long way to go.



George J. Vargo, Ph.D., CHP

Senior Scientist

MJW Corporation

http://www.mjwcorp.com

610-925-3377

610-925-5545 (fax)

vargo@physicist.net





-



************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To

unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the

text "unsubscribe radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail,

with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/