Re: Rad workers - but not t

["Michael P. Grissom" <mikeg@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

RT Training Issue,

I would consider 20 hours a year of radiation safety training to
radiographic technologists very unlikely.  That amount of training
for skills maintenance, including meeting and short course
attendance, might be possible.

I would consider 2-4 hours including demonstrations/tapes
regarding the use of patient radiation protection devices (shields
of various kinds available in the clinic) and RT personal protective
measures for medical RTs (time, distance, shielding) and maybe 
some phantom work on a room-by-room basis with either a 
diagnostic medical physicist or medical HP (functions served by 
many of us while employed as hospital based RSOs for agreement 
state or agreement state "like" operations) to be reasonable.

For dental radiographers, 1-2 hours per annum on the topics
of patient and tech protective measures and dental phantom
demonstrations (showing the effects of different technique factors
on image quality) can be very informative, and were for my dental
clinic operations.

As part of this training, I provided the latest information on area
monitoring results (posted film badges or other passive monitoring
device, and direct reading radiation safety survey instrumentation), 
results of the past year's dosimetry for radiographic personnel, and 
events of significance to patient doses (retake rates, shields 
obviously not used in reviewed radiographs, appropriate actions for 
pregnant patients/workers--that is a "lessons learned" program, etc.).

Reminders of such issues as background radiation levels and
other general radiation safety information commensurate with
the hazards (10 CFR Part 19 overtones...) for the particular
radiographic operations being conducted were tailored for each
clinical situation (including R/F rooms, CP labs, Urology, Cardiology,
portables on wards/in ORs, nucmed, dental IO/Pano/Endo, etc.).

To capture all the techs in this training (yes, MDs and nurses got
some too--even diagnostic and therapeutic radiologists) required 
giving several of these clinic/service specific sessions several 
times to account for shift work and other factors.  I found it most 
useful to tailor these sessions for the specific clinic rather than a 
generic briefing for all.

Nolan's idea isn't a bad one for general radsafe topics (web based
training and/or specific video's or computer based training modules),
but I would always make sure that a reasonable amount of clinic-specific
training was provided too.  The later tended to be regarded as more relevant
to the individuals' day-to-day activities, and was almost always
well received (after the battles to get everyone together had been
fought)!  Even by the outpatient nursing staff!

By the way, this level of continuing education was required for our
personnel EVERY year.

S.,

MikeG.


At 05:28 PM 2/11/97 -0600, Sandy Pearl wrote:
>I am not rrying to equate a power plant with a medical facility. The 
>one thing in common though is that the workers should be trained and 
>they shoud receive requalification training at least annually, even 
>if it's only 20 hours a year.
>
>------------------
>Sandy Perle
>mailto:sandyfl@ix.netcom.com


-----------------------
Michael P. Grissom
Assistant Director (ES&H) 
SLAC
mikeg@slac.stanford.edu
Phone:  (415) 926-2346
Fax:    (415) 926-3030