Re: Landauer's New Dosimetry Badge

[Agnes Barlow <agnes.barlow@yale.edu>]

We currently see a LOT of 10, 20 and 30 mRem photon doses reported for
researchers who are only using tracer amounts of beta emitters.  These
photon doses are also reported for badges of personnel who were inactive
for the entire monitoring period in terms of radioactive material use.{ie.
badge in desk in office for entire period] When these apparent false positive
[background environmental radiation] are 30 mRem or so, I hesitate to sign
off on them as occupational exposures.  If anyone is using the Luxel badges
in a research environment, I'd be interested in knowing if you are seeing
any doses reported that you think are false positives.

Thank you.

Aggie
Agnes.Barlow@Yale.edu
203 737-2142


At 09:09 AM 9/10/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Fellow listserver members,
>At our institution, we have had multi-year contracts with R. S. Landauer, 
>Inc. of IL for a very long time. 
>After a briefing by our regional Landauer representative in February, 
>on July 1 we implemented the Aluminum Oxide based "Luxel" system with over 
>600 monthly whole body (and in some applications collar and of 
>course pregnancy dosimetry) devices in our 900 bed hospital (which is the 
>second largest in our state).
>So far, I have only seen positives in the new technology's implementation.
>In the past few weeks, we have held a few of our various user departmental 
>annual radiation safety briefing training sessions - where the new 
>badging system and copies of results obtained so far, - have been handed 
>out to attending users.  As with any "change" we have had lots of 
>questions about the technology, how it works and why we changed. These 
>dialogs have all been positive and have shown some of our users that they 
>now can work together at keeping their dose truely ALARA by seeing their 
>actual exposures at these low levels versus the previous "M" for minimal.  
>It has added to make them more radiation safety conscious while they fully 
>understand that for the non-pregnant worker, this dose level is not very 
>significant - it just reinforces the fact that these detection devices are 
>a useful radiation safety monitoring tool. Plus they do actually work - 
>when some users may wonder if this is a wasted effort when they only see 
>the below accuracy threshold of an "M" every month in the departmental dose 
>reports we pay for that their department openly posts for them to view.
>

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