Re: Cornflake Health Physics

[Craig Harmon <charmon@skid.ps.uci.edu>]

From: GARY MANSFIELD <GARY.MANSFIELD@quickmail.llnl.gov>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Cornflake Health Physics

[deleted]
>I am concerned about the pervasiveness of the ever-popular "Anyone can do
>Health Physics" syndrome, where management (or whoever) decides to wave a
>magic wand over a bunch of engineers, chemists, fry-cooks, or what-have-you,
>and call them "Health Physicists" because they (management) don't want 
>to bite the bullet (and maybe pay the bucks) to get a "real" HP.    If 
>anyone out there in Radioactive Land hasn't seen the results of fine 
>decisions like these - just let me know.

Let me ask a question.  Doesn't 10 CFR 35.900 apply to ANY organization 
that uses or stores radioactive materials?  If so, doesn't that section limit
the number of "unqualified" people in RSO positions?

I'm currently working for the VA, and have been looking for an HP 
position, (I have a BS Physics (UCLA) and am just turning in my MS thesis 
in Nuclear Physics) but they are all filled up with Nuc Med techs and 
X-ray techs.  Unfortunately these people, under the VA system, are not 
promotable into the RSO Health Physicist positions (typically GS-13) 
because they: 1) weren't academically qualified in the first place, and 
thus promoting them to the RSO position will be a real stretch or 2) they 
can't satisify the educational or certification requirements of 
10 CFR 39.000.  So it seems the VA is shooting itself in the foot.  All 
the ARSO positions (training positions designed to give people with the 
appropriate academic background the experience required for 
certification/or to satisfy the requirements of 10 CFR 39.000) are filled 
with unqualified people (who sit there forever), so now the VA is having a 
hard time filling it's RSO positions from within.

In regards to the comment about Health Physics/RSO's getting a bad name, 
I agree.  Many of the physicists I am doing research with are absolutely 
horrified at the thought that I would EVEN consider getting into health 
physics.

I've met some ARSOs who don't know what that squiggly line (integral 
sign) means and are completely clueless about physics in general, modern 
in particular.  Some people on the list were making comments about beta 
decay ranges.  To be nice, I'll just say that a physicist would not have 
had to ask those questions...

Why do they still have the positions titled as health "physicist"?  Why not 
"health safety tech" or "rad safety tech"?  A lot of people go to 
school and bust their butts studying to earn the right to be called 
physicists, part of that is an expectation that the person knows "physics".

Is it just me, or does it seem to others that the fraud level in 
health physics is much higher than most professions.

Craig
charmon@skid.ps.uci.edu