Re: Reseachers do their monthly lab survey?

[fegallag@uci.edu (Frank E. Gallagher, III)]

This is my first response to radsafe--I have only been a subscriber for the
past month or so! 

At the University of California, Irvine, researchers are required to do
monthly lab wipes in any month in which radioisotopes are used.  If
radioisotopes remain in storage, the minimum requirement is quarterly with a
notation in the wipe test records for the other two months of "storage only".

We have about 170 responsible principal investigators (RPI's) using
radioactive materials in approximately 550 laboratories, along with a Triga
reactor and a cyclotron producing F-18 for Pet scans in our Brain Imaging
Center.

We do not approve purchase orders--our Purchasing department gets a copy of
the Radiation Use Authorization and then does a great job approving all
orders.  Our control is in the receipt and monitoring of the package.
Before a researcher can pick up a radioactive shipment, we review our
records to see when the last monthly wipes were reviewed, and then, if it
has been more than a month since the last wipes, we ask lab to bring the
more recent wipe test records with them when they pick up the package.  We
only release the package upon review of the wipe test records.

During our routine audits (semi-annualy for most labs, quarterly for busy
higher hazard labs--e.g., those that do frequent iodinations, and annually
for very occasional use low hazard labs) we also make survey meter readings
and do comprehensive wipe tests, as a back-up.  We review lab wipe test
records and lab inventory (receipt, use, disposal) records suring these
audits (we call them surveys--a friendlier term).  We do not find much
contamination these days--use quantities are lower than in the past,
researchers are generally careful, and we apply pressure to those few who
are not.  



>Hi, Radsafers:
>
>Any one of you use the researchers/labs to do their own monthly lab
>swipe/survey and you count the sample and keep the records?

Frank E. Gallagher, III, CHP
RSO, Univ. of California, Irvine, 92717-2725
Voice: (714) 824-6904; Fax: (714) 824-8539
E-mail: fegallag@uci.edu