Standards
- Who has the main responsibility for patient protection?
- What are my main responsibilities as a nuclear medicine specialist?
- What are my main responsibilities as a nuclear medicine technologist?
- What are my main responsibilities as a medical physicist in nuclear medicine?
1. Who has the main responsibility for patient protection?
The IAEA Basic Safety Standards (BSS) state that the main responsibility for radiation protection, including protection of the patient, lies with the registrant or licensee and with the employer. They have to ensure that the responsibility for overall protection of the patient is assigned to a medical practitioner (usually a nuclear medicine physician). They must also ensure that medical and paramedical staff are appropriately trained and protected, and that radioactive material is used only by authorized staff.
Responsibility in radiation protection is the concern of all members of the administrative system in a hospital from the employing authority to the individual carrying out a radiological procedure. In any facility using radiation, the responsibility for radiation protection should be clearly and formally defined.
2. What are my main responsibilities in radiation protection as a nuclear medicine specialist?
- Ensuring overall radiation protection of the patient;
- Ensuring that the exposure of patients is the minimum required to achieve the intended objective, taking into account the relevant guidance levels for medical exposure;
- Establishing optimized protocols for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, in consultation with the medical physicist;
- Providing criteria to manage the examination of pregnant women, paediatric patients, medico-legal procedures, occupational health examinations and medical and biomedical research;
- Evaluating any radiation incident or accident from a medical point of view.
3. What are my main responsibilities in radiation protection as a nuclear medicine technologist?
As technologist you have a key position in protection of the patient. In summary, your responsibilities and duties in this regard are to:
- identify the patient;
- inform the patient;
- inform accompanying persons and staff nursing a patient after a nuclear medicine examination or therapy;
- verify that the female patient is non-pregnant;
- ensure that a mother in lactation is given information about discontining nursing;
- calculate administered activity to a child according to the local rules;
- verify the administered radiopharmaceutical and its activity;
- perform regular quality control of activity meter and gamma camera;
- inform the nuclear medicine physician and radiation protection officer (RPO) in the case of an accident or incident.
4. What are my main responsibilities as a medical physicist in nuclear medicine?
Your responsibilities and duties can be summarized as:
- participating in the continuing review of the nuclear medicine practice's resources (including budget, equipment and staffing), operations, policies and procedures;
- planning, in conjunction with the nuclear medicine physician and the radiation protection officer (RPO), the facilities for nuclear medicine practice;
- preparing performance specifications for equipment with regard to radiation protection;
- carrying out acceptance testing of equipment;
- supervising equipment maintenance;
- designing, implementing and supervising QA procedures;
- performing dose calculations;
- participating in the investigation and evaluation of incidents and accidents;
- contributing to the radiation protection training programme.
References
- INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, International Basic Safety Standards for Protection against Ionizing Radiation and for the Safety of Radiation Sources, Safety Series No. 115, STI/PUB/996, IAEA, Vienna (1996).
- INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, Applying Radiation Safety Standards in Nuclear Medicine, Safety Reports Series No. 40, STI/PUB/1207, IAEA, Vienna (2005).