To cert. or not to cert.?

["ZAPP, NEAL (JSC-SD)" <neal.zapp1@jsc.nasa.gov>]

Since I found the last sentence of my post in another message, let me make
clear the point that wanted to make, that way I can't be accidentally
misunderstood.  My argument is a little different than that offered in the
message holding my sentence, so I want to make the distinction.  With regard
to degrees, they indicate what they indicate, that a person has been through
a program of formal education in a particular area.  Whether or not that
education prepares that person for a particular level of responsibility in
the workplace is up to the person who does the hiring.  This part I think is
pretty much without debate.  I have a very specific problem with requiring
ABHP or other certification to consider an HP qualified.  It's because this
certification is different from that required of a lawyer, and depending on
the specialty involved, in some cases that of a physician.  The cert.'s we
require of doctors and lawyers are easier to get.  Once you pass the bar,
you're a lawyer, regardless of how long you've been interested in law.  Once
you pass the written and oral examination delivered by the state medical
board, you're board certified of course assuming you were a doctor going in.
If you take it in your first year of residency out of med school, or after
your twentieth year of practicing medicine, makes no difference.  And yes, I
do realize that the rules can be and are different not only in different
states but with regard to different specialties in medicine.  I'm not making
a flat statement that we should all go into medicine or law, I'm stating
that it's possible to receive medical board certification without a
requisite period of employment as a staff physician in the area of your
certification.  I say nothing about an individual's ability to pass the
tests, or about their adherence to any oath or pledge of morality.  My
problem is with declaring a certification that itself requires that a person
have been working for a specified period of time in a capacity in which I
understand the case to have been made that he or she wouldn't be hired
without the certification.  It's the age-old catch twenty-two:  How can I
get the requisite five years as an HP to sit if I can't get hired as an HP
without the cert.?  I'm not denying that any of the certificates (P.E., CHP,
etc.) that have been tossed around are evidence that a person who holds one
or more must know the field well to have passed the tests.  What I will deny
is the converse, that anyone who doesn't have one doesn't deserve to have
one, and that they do not know the field well.  Or that I with a good
educational background and less than five years experience due to age am
incapable of contributing in any more than a tech. role, so I can't get the
experience I need to get the cert. to get the job to get the experience I
need to get the cert.  I'm perfectly willing to learn in the real world
those things that I couldn't have been taught by a school.  I'm perfectly
willing to defer to people who in some cases have been doing this longer
than I've been breathing.  I'm not willing to be told that it's impossible
for me, regardless of how hard I work, to be considered "qualified" in my
field.  Just to be complete, let me say once more that I'm working towards
my very own little CHP stamp, so I see the need to demonstrate competency.
I just don't think that that demonstration is limited to any one piece of
paper.  I'm not even sure at this point that anyone has said it should be,
that's just the feeling I got reading a few of these things while I was
probably supposed to be working in the field of health physics.

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.-John Lubbock


E. Neal Zapp
NASA/JSC, Radiation Biology
Bldg. 37, Rm. 167
(281) 483-2244 (O)
(713) 765-2193 (P)

Any opinions expressed herein, or incorrect assertions, are attributable
only to me.  Not to you, not to him, not to her, not to them, not to us, to
me.  Noone else could possibly be this brain-dead without having the plug
pulled, so it must be me.




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