Rad Worker Training

[John Pickering <johnjp@email.sjsu.edu>]

Several months ago, several individuals on this listserver were interested
in a course I was developing for radiation workers in a general laboratory
environment.  This information is an update.  The development phase was much
longer than anticipated.  

I have been experimenting with the training courses at San Jose State
University.  I felt that the previous program was academic in nature and not
meeting the needs of the individual in the laboratory.  Our Radiation Safety
course has been re-designed (in practical concepts) to meet the needs of a
general laboratory environment.  I believe this to be a significant improvement.

Initially, a new text was written to be more applicable to the radiation
worker rather than a health physics technician or a research scientist
(there are execellent text books for this group already).  This took about
three years to finish.  I eliminated items that were memory driven out of
the material as much as possible.  We wanted to concentrate on concepts
rather than regulatory codes and mathematical formulas.  The average
radiation worker just does not retain this information and therefore less
than useful.  The course includes practical exercises/activities.  I have
designed the course to include hands-on training as much as possible.

The content was developed from the requirements dictated by the US
Department of Energy, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and several states
(including California).  The course length is just over 20 hours.  On campus
it is scheduled for 1.5 hours per day for 14 weeks.  This course
concentrates more on beta and gamma emitters commonly found in the general
laboratory.  The intent is to provide a course which a student may attend
and formally meet the regulatory standards.  At the same time, the course
will be more practical for the worker.  The end result (hopefully) will be
better trained radiation workers.

The text was designed in the concept of a study guide.  The cost was kept as
low as possible.  This way it will be less expense and work to purchase a
text for each worker rather than photo copy the book. It is approximately
$12.00 and is about 190 pages.  Suggestions for practical exercises are
included in the last section.  A copy may be purchased through our
University book store.  

My goal is to field test the lesson plans based upon the text during this
Fall semester.  We begin on January 27th.   After the field testing, I plan
to finish developing the course such that it may be offered over the
internet.  The course will be for credit or non-credit.  Courses for credit
are more expensive.  I am also considering developing short courses for
retraining of radiation workers.  I have already developed one for our
researchers here at San Jose State University.  It is an interactive course
written in Hyperstudio which may be used on a PC or Mac.  We are considering
putting this on the internet or intranet.

If you would like more information, just give me a call at (408) 924-4818 or
send me an e-mail.  I have two e-mail addresses.  At the University it is
johnjp@email.sjsu.edu and at my home it is pickent@ix.netcom.com.

John Pickering 
Radiation Safety Officer