Re: Is Health Physics Really A Profession?

[Steven.Rima@DOEGJPO.COM (Steven Rima)]

     Bill,
     
     You make some excellent points, and I must confess that I agree with 
     you completely. However, there are those that don't, and that believe 
     that anyone with the right survey meter and/or very little instruction 
     can do "HP work." In the example of medicine you give, I'm afraid that 
     the only thing that prevents non-MD's from practicing medicine is the 
     law. It's illegal in all 50 states to practice medicine without a 
     license, so there's no call for "idiot-proof scalpels" or other absurd 
     things. Unfortunately, there's no such laws preventing anyone from 
     practicing health physics. Should there be? I don't know, but that's a 
     subject for another day.
     
     It certainly doesn't help our cause that many of the regulators we 
     deal with are far less knowledgable in health physics than those they 
     regulate. Doctors regulate doctors, lawyers regulate lawyers, etc. 
     It's my experience that not all regulators in the health physics arena 
     are health physicists.
     
     To those regulators out in RADSAFE-land, I didn't say "all", just 
     "many." Please direct all flames to my private email address below. 
     :-)
     
     Steven D. Rima, CHP, CSP
     Manager, Health Physics and Industrial Hygiene
     MACTEC-ERS, LLC
     srima@doegjpo.com
     


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Is Health Physics Really A Profession?
Author:  LIPTONW@dteenergy.com at Internet
Date:    2/12/99 1:43 PM


I thought that most of the responses to the question regarding "idiot proof 
survey meters" were excellent, but the very fact that such a question was 
asked and taken seriously bothers me deeply.   
     
I doubt that anyone in the medical profession asks his colleagues about an 
"idiot proof scalpel" or an "idiot proof heart-lung machine."  It's 
generally 
accepted that you can't practice medicine without a physician, and I've 
never 
met a physician who considers himself to be an idiot.  However, there seems 
to 
be a widely held belief that, to practice health physics, you don't need a 
health physicist; just an "idiot proof survey meter."  This is not new with 
this posting.  When I worked at a DOE lab, some of the scientists kept 
asking 
me to give them survey meters; and then I wouldn't have to survey their 
labs.   
     
This forces me to ask the question, "Is health physics really a profession?"
     
I don't intend to be facetious.  It's just that we have to answer this among 
ourselves, before we can effectively address public perceptions.   
     
I propose that a group of people with similar knowledge and skills must meet 
3 
criteria to be considered a profession: 
     
(1) To be considered a member of this profession, an individual must master 
an 
established set of knowledge and skills.  We've made a start, here, but 
there's a long way to go.  ABHP has done a lot, and should be congratulated.
     
However, the CHP exam was never intended as a line between those who are 
professional health physicists and those who aren't.  As a matter of fact, 
I've seen little correlation between certification and job performance. 
(BTW, 
I am a CHP.)  At the other end of the spectrum, I've seen a lot of 
individuals 
who call themselves health physicists, but aren't even close - "Have survey 
meter (idiot proof, I hope), will travel." 
     
(2) The members of a profession must perform some socially useful function - 
i.e., organized crime is not a profession.  I think we're ok, here; 
although, 
when we start wasting resources on protecting society from man-millirems, or 
zapping beagles to get the n-th significant digit on some uptake function, I 
have my doubts. 
     
(3) A member of a profession who expresses a professional opinion can be 
refuted only by another member of that profession; i.e. to sue a physician 
for 
malpractice, you have to get another physician to testify for you.  Here's 
where we really fail!  Ask my friends at Brookhaven, where Alec Baldwin and 
Helen Caldicott seem to have more credibility on health physics issues than 
health physicists.   
     
I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. 
     
Ok, it's been a long week.  Maybe, I'll be in a better mood by Monday; but, 
regardless, this won't go away. 
     
The opinions expressed are strictly mine. 
It's not about dose it's about trust. 
     
Bill Lipton 
liptonw@dteenergy.com 
     
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