Radiation News
The Transition from Reactor to Medical Health Physics
11/08/2011
-By Patricia A. Drooff
Assistant Director Health Physics, Brigham and Women's Hospital
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Have you ever thought about taking your Health Physics experience and skills and applying them in a new position in a different industry? It can be done. If you have ever considered a change in industries, I encourage you to explore opportunities in your areas of interest. The Health Physics profession is one of few that allow its members to apply their skills in a variety of industries. If you think about it the very basis of Health Physics involves a combination of the subjects of Biology, Chemistry, Math, and Physics, along with the skills of adaptability and leadership with the mission to ensure the health and safety of people who are exposed to radiation.
To succeed as a Health Physics professional one must take their knowledge of the basics and apply it to a multitude of situations whether it be monitoring a thousand workers during a refuel outage, investigating a contamination event, assisting a researcher with a research project or communicating the recommendations for keeping exposures ALARA to physicians. Health Physicists are adaptable at the core and for this very reason have competencies that can be applied to many industries and work environments.
For many years while working at a power reactor I was always intrigued with the medical side of Health Physics but thought that experience in the power industry would not apply. I have since learned that I was wrong. In fact taking a chance on a different path can lead you to where you ultimately want to be. The first step in transitioning was to step into the research reactor world, this showed me that HP program elements were the same, they were just on a smaller scale. In transitioning to the the Medical Health Physics field, again, I found that the basic program elements are the same however the biggest difference is that reactor HPs spend their career keeping radioactive material out of people to keep them safe and hospitals put radioactive material into people in a mission to keep them alive. That concept has taken some getting used to while at the same time creating an exciting yet steep learning curve. The use of radioactive material to help people is most rewarding.
To describe the Health Physics programs in the three different worlds of reactor power, research reactor and medical health physics one can divide them into four categories: basic organization and structure, program mission, work environment and dose to staff and patients. The power reactor world in my experience had a fluid organizational structure, in fourteen years I had thirteen job titles, twelve bosses and more than 6 RSOs. In the research and medical fields the organizational structure is more static with RSOs and employees in their positions for over nineteen years. Hospitals have the smallest staff levels. The difference in program missions is obvious. The most remarkable difference is in the purposeful placement of RAM into people whether it is feeding patients radioactive eggs for gastric emptying studies, having patients inhale Xe gas or implanting patients with permanent sources, it is a rewarding yet still odd experience. Additionally, there are many new medical terms and acronyms to learn, not to mention the everyday use of SI units, as well as a maze of hallways to get lost in.
The work environment is entirely different in that you get to see the light of day, the typical day is a 9-5 schedule, no outages and no weekends. On some days there are harpist playing in the hallways!
Did you know that over half of the world’s radiation workers are in the medical field? The average annual rad worker dose (we currently monitor ~2000 staff members) at our facility is 19 mrem. The average nuclear power reactor worker dose is ~160 mrem. Depending on job function the average annual deep dose in our facility can range from 12 to 500 mrem. The average annual lens dose can range from 80 mrem to 1,700 mrem. Doses to patients can by much higher than the average rad worker dose.
So in summary, there are many facets to the Health Physics industry and if you are interested in experiencing a new aspect I encourage you to “go for it.”
Thank you to Mirion for inviting me to participate in the recent Benchmarking and Training Conference, I was honored to attend and happy to share a different view of our profession.