Re: The Health Physics Profession

["David W. Lee" <lee_david_w@lanl.gov>]

	Now for my 2 cents worth added to this thread.  It is my understanding
that "board certification" in just about any field that you choose to name
is basically a "post-World War II" phenomenon.  In general, the thought
underlying these post-WW II certifications was that a formal degree should
not be an immutable requirement.  The reasoning basically was that whether
you learned it in a college formal degree program or learned it through
other means (years of on-the-job experience), it should make no difference.
 Either way, if you could pass the certification exam, degree or no degree,
you thereby earned the privelege of calling yourself a "professional
engineer" or whatever.  The members of the early certification boards
appear to have recognized that you can learn the basics of the specialized
knowledge you need to know through methods other than just getting a
college degree.  It has only been in later (recent) times that
certification boards have become more "elitist" in the sense of requiring
formal degrees.  Although presumably a rarity, imagine the case of a child
prodigy whose parents educated him/her in the home.  Such a child might not
even end up going to college.  But at some point, if he/she decided to
become say, a health physicist, should the lack of a college sheepskin
prevent him from taking the certification exam and trying to become a CHP,
or a PE, or whatever.  If you can learn the specialized knowledge that you
need to know, by whatever means, and show the requisite amount of validated
job experience, I have difficulty perceiving that a formal college degree
is necessarily "necessary."

	Perhaps other Radsafers can add more detail, but as I recall, Harry Truman
came from a rather poor family, little money on which to go to college.  He
took classes part-time and was just a couple of classes short of getting
his law degree when his father died and he had to return to Missouri to
help the family, etc.  Would it have been appropriate then, as apparently
is the case nowadays, for the American Bar Association to deny Harry the
opportunity to take the bar exam just because he did not have a formal law
degree?

Best regards  David


At 03:55 PM 11-09-97 -0500, you wrote:
>I just want to add my 2 cents...
>
>There is huge difference of understanding between a person with a degree
in health
>physics and person not having a degree.  I believe you cannot consider
yourself a
>professional in health physics without a college degree and several years
work
>experience AFTER you earned your degree.
>
>I worked for a few years as a "Rent-A-Tech" during refueling outages before
>earning my degree in health physics.  My level of understanding as tech
was just
>enough so that I can swing a meter, write a decent survey report, and provide
>radiological coverage based upon recommendations by the plant health
physicist.
>
>I have heard people say that training in the nuclear navy as enlisted
personnel is
>comparable to that of a nuclear engineering/health physics degree.  This
is not
>true.  My program at Oregon State was made mostly of nuclear navy enlisted
people
>that were given a 3 year opportunity to earn a degree.  It was no surprise
that
>the first 2 years were a struggle for the non-navy students competing for
a good
>grade against the navy trained students, but by the third year, it was an
even
>playing ground.
>
>My point is, you gain the theory through formal education that is
necessary to be
>a professional health physicist.  Without a theory background and post
academic
>work experience, you cannot make solid recommendations or decisions.  This is
>necessary to be a professional in health physics.
>
>
>
>
>
David W. Lee
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Radiation Protection Services Group (ESH-12)
PO Box 1663, MS K483
Los Alamos, NM  87545
PH:   (505) 667-8085
FAX:  (505) 667-9726
lee_david_w@lanl.gov