medical health physics

[William V Lipton <liptonw@dteenergy.com>]

There's been a lot of good discussion on medical misadministrations, and
the comments of my medical health physics colleagues have provided
valuable insight into this problem.  Nevertheless, I find that some of
the responses are unsatisfactory, and call into question our viability
as a profession. They seem to fall into the following categories:

"We're too busy to address this issue."  While I have no doubt that
you're busy, I question your priorities.

"This doesn't happen very often, so why worry about it?"  -  Even one
incident is too many.  We should be capturing lessons learned and taking
steps to prevent or minimize recurrences.

"Hospitals and physicians don't want to spend the money to prevent
this."  - While this is probably true, we should be communicating our
concerns and making the best use of the resources available.

"It's not a health physics problem." - Of all the responses, this one
bothers me the most.   The bylaws of the Health Physics Society state
(Article II):  "...The objective of the SOCIETY is the protection of
people and the environment from unnecessary exposure to radiation..."  A
medical misadministration, especially to the wrong patient, is
unnecessary radiation exposure.  Anyone who feels that trying to prevent
such misadministrations is not a health physics concern is obviously not
a professional health physicist, no matter how impressive his/her
education and experience.

The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.

Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com


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