Ignorant members of public - About ionizing radiation

Let us frankly expose the TRUTH – Common man (person) including illiterate, semi-illiterate, and so-called literate or educated, hardly know anything about ionizing radiation. They only know that radiation is very harmful, so many thousands have died in the explosions of atom bombs in Japan; exposed person will lose hair and become impotent, etc etc. How we are going to explain all the benefits we talking about to such a large percentage, may be more than 90% of the population who are lacking an understanding of elementary radiation physics, mathematics, biology and medicine?

Communication is the key. All the practitioners of applications of radiation and radiological protection should focus on ways and means to create awareness amongst the people about radiation, benefits of low level exposures, medical uses in health-care and food preservation, some health effects at high levels of exposures, and how safely the radioactive waste is managed by concerned experts. We should use mass media communication systems and school/college syllabus to maximum possible extent. Desist from use of words, like probability, ALARA and risk analysis when communicating with members of the public.

Radiological protection in medicine

Use of radiation in medicine has been increasing around the world in the recent past for diagnosis and therapy. The fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures are minimally invasive and used as an alternative to conventional surgery, resulting in reduced patient morbidity and mortality.

Radiation doses to patients from fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures may be high enough to cause skin injuries and increased probability of developing cancer in future years. There is also a risk to staff members of deterministic effects such as cataract formation. Optimization of the patient dose is important.

Although many fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures are conducted in radiology departments, they are increasingly performed by non-radiologists in other areas of the hospital, such as hybrid operating rooms. It is important to ensure that adequate radiation protection training and support services like radiation monitoring are provided to staff members involved in fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures. Radiological protection of the staff members need to be an important consideration while developing new interventional procedures.