Hospital Radiation Safety Training Needs

Radiation is often performed in hospitals under the supervision of radiologists and other staff. Radiation staff must complete all of the initial and ongoing requirements for working with radioactive material. Training is considered necessary to ensure safety for the people working with radiation because radioactive material can have serious repercussions for people's health and the environment. Training is also necessary for radiation workers because they are exposed to more radiation during the course of their careers than are people in most other professions.

Types of Training

• Training is comprehensive and extremely scientific and detail-oriented. All radiation workers are put through a rigorous, hands-on training session. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission stipulates that hospitals must provide training in five major topics: principles of radiation protection; radiation measurements and monitoring; radiation calculations; proper working conditions and compliance with regulations; and biological effects, radiation risks and exposure limits.

  Practical aspects of radiation use are also given great importance in hospital training programs. Practical training involves educating staff on the precautions to be taken while administering radiation; reporting unsafe conditions to a Radiation Safety Officer; potential hazards; knowledge of where to store nuclear material; and licensing. This training is given over 40 hours of classroom teaching; 20 hours of clinical experience; 200 hours of handling techniques; and 500 hours of clinical experience.

Rules and Procedures

• Some rules are obviously needed to make sure radiation materials are used safely. These are aimed at lowering, if not preventing, the potential negative effects of radiation. A well-grounded set of regulations is necessary to make sure that there is not the slightest negative fallout from a radiation session.

Aims of Safety Training

• Regulations for radiation staff are collectively called by the acronym ALARA, or As Low As Reasonably Achievable, principles of protection from radiation materials. These principles are broken up into the following categories:

  Time: The least amount of time necessary and permissible must be spent in the exposure area.

  Shielding: Some kind of protection is needed to prevent radiation from spreading from one person to another.

  Distance: The greater the distance from a radioactive substance, the better. This principle is one of the important ones in reducing the fallout of radiation, as distance lowers exposure risk considerably.

  Controlling contamination: Controlling contamination is another equally important step towards reducing the effects of radiation. During and after a radiation session, radiation staff has to use secondary materials such as absorbent pads and personal equipment such as gloves and lab coat to keep contamination off of their bodies. A radiation badge called a dosimeter has to be kept as a personal record of the number of hours a person has spent in a radiation location.