RE: Radiation Protection to attending hospital ward staff

[maay100@bgumail.bgu.ac.il (Quastel)]

Dear radsafers                                          March 16

        An internal medicine ward is chronically overcrowded and many
patients are in beds lining the corridors. Some of these patients have been
given diagnostic doses of radionuclides for bone scans, renal studies,
thallium for cardiac studies, etc. (I don't refer to I-131 therapy here).

        I would be interested to know what are the policies in different
medical institutions concerning, for example, the geographic ward
distribution of the patients, in order to minimize exposure to attending
staff. I am not aware of any official rules or recommendations on this
matter, and we have assumed that the doses to attending nurses and MDs are
generally too low to be of concern. However, in view of the recent 1
mSv/year recommended effective dose equivalent to non-radiation workers, it
may be desirable to reexamine the matter in order to respond effectively to
questions of attending staff and the hospital administration.

        This question is addressed in particular to hospital radiation
protection officers who must often face such questions.

Dr. Michael Quastel
Nuclear Medicine
Soroka Medical Center
Beer Sheva, Israel