Re: MONITORING UNIVERSITY HEALTH CENTER

[Herrold@uwyo.edu (Jim F. Herrold)]

I agree with Kent Lambert's opinion (reproduced in part below). This is a 
particularly sore spot with me. A while back, with valuable input from 
numerous radsafe responders, I proposed what I thought was a reasonable 
monitoring policy. My main purpose was to get one in writing where there was 
almost nothing before. In the process, however, I discovered we could save 
over $2000 a year on unnecessary badges and still remain conservative. I 
don't call that "cheap" insurance. There are many other things we could 
spend that money on which would make a greater contribution toward campus 
health and safety.

The proposed policy got kicked around by the Radiaton Safety Committee and 
finally stalled on the liability issue. The most resistance to change came 
from the representative from the VP of Finance!  Finally I suggested we 
table the discussion and leave the issue of risk up to the Director of Risk 
Management. The three of us were supposed to get together and make a final 
recommendation to the committee on the issue. Four months have passed and no 
meeting has taken place.

Frankly, I was surprised by the power that the fear of litigation has over 
rational thought, and it caught me unawares. This won't happen again. My 
advice is: if you want to make any reductions in the numbers of badges you 
issue, you had better put all your ducks in order first. It could be an 
up-hill battle.

Jim Herrold, RSO
University of Wyoming
herrold@uwyo,edu

 ----------
On Tue, 30 Apr 1996 sandy_perle@email.fpl.com wrote:

>      1. While a dose history is adequate to meet regulatory requirements, 

>         i.e., does the individual "require" to be monitored, the has more 

>         to do with what risk are you willing to assume in the event an 

>         individual enters into future litigation regarding your facility.
>
>      As I started this post, the answer each facility must ask itself has
>      to do with how much information do you want to maintain and how much
>      risk do you want to assume if you had used dosimetry and decide to
>      stop providing it. How much risk are you avoiding with providing 
cheap
>      dosimetry. Cheap insurance in my opinion.


Kent Lambert replied:

These seem to me to be decisions that a Risk Manager, rather than a
Health Physicist should be making (albeit with HP input).  With this
logic, should I also monitor every person that walks into my hospital,
after all, they might be exposed, too.  They could spend time in the
radiology waiting room, or accidentally walk into a research laboratory.
Why would they be any less likely to sue?

I do not see this as cheap insurance.  Radiation monitoring is the second
largest line item in my budget, only salaries are higher.