Re: To cert. or not to cert.?

["Michael C. Baker" <mcbaker@lanl.gov>]

>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.?  

Engineers deal with this system by having two tests, and most states 
subsequently have two levels of licensure.  The first is as an "Engineer-
in-Training" (some states have different names) and after a required 
amount of experience and a second exam one can become licensed as a 
"professional engineer".  Granted you cannot perform some jobs without
a PE license and in a sense you are required to serve through an 
"apprentice" period. During this period you can perform the duties 
but you generally have to be supervised by a licensed engineer. 

So what!  Your job effects the safety of others and this is obviously 
no less true for health physicists.  I think, since this is a sensitive 
issue, we loose sight of the fact that public safety is the number one
goal and if in trying to meet this goal some very competent folks get
turned off because they have not gone to the effort to get licensed/
certified, that's the price that is paid. Since many employers and 
people who hire contract HPs are not in the position to judge their 
competence until it is too late, to require a minimum amount of 
experience and knowledge (as evidenced through the examinations) seems 
to me to be the minimum they should do.  The best documentation of 
meeting these requirements are through licensure or certication programs.  
The only thing they tell you is that the person has at one time met a 
minimum standard, but isn't this better than nothing?

Mike Baker
	
-------------------------------------------------
Michael C. Baker, Ph.D., P.E.
Radioassay and Nondestructive Testing Team
Environmental Science and Waste Technology Group
Mail Stop J594, Los Alamos National Laboratory
P.O. Box 1663, Los Alamos, NM 87545 (USA)

email:  mcbaker@lanl.gov             

Phone: (505) 667-7334        Fax: (505) 665-8346                 
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