Re: IH/HP question

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

On Thu, 4 Apr 1996 lambert@HAL.HAHNEMANN.EDU wrote after others wrote:

> A RSO at a hospital must have 1 year work experience under the RSO at a
> hospital, and at a university with a broad scope license, the NRC has a
> subjective requirement which permits them to judge whether the proposed
> RSO has sufficent training and experience for the licensed activities. 
> Therefore, these hiring decisions must meet regulatory muster as well as
> save money. 

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't 10 CFR 20..... say that a Nuclear 
Medicine MD is considered qualified?  Take the VA for example.  Because 
of their closed hiring practices, they will sometimes hire an RSO who is 
not qualified, name them the ARSO,  put the license under a Nuc Med MD 
as the RSO, then after a year the ARSO has the experience to become the 
RSO.  Resulting, in many cases, with RSOs without much of an educational 
background.  I would assume that this practice happens in other 
hospitals/organizations as well.

What is there to stop this sort of abuse?  Tightening up 
the regulations?  It seems to me you health physics people aren't playing 
enough politics to save your jobs.  I mean, look how well ACR has done 
for their physicists.

I think it all goes to the lower educational requirements.  I don't care 
what kind of a genious you are or how much experience you have, you simply 
CAN NOT, under MQSA, touch a mammo unit without ACR certification 
which requires at least an MS Physics and completion of a residency 
just to sit on the exam.  Radiology departments can't weasel out of it by 
appointing a Radiologist to do the physics while some technologist gets 
grandfathered into the position.  So for radiological physics, the 
education is in the regulatory requirements, while under health physics 
programs, having an educated health physicist is a luxury.

Regards,

Craig