Training Requirements for Health Physicists in the Decontamination/Decommissioning Field

摘要

While a significant decrease in the number of new facilities requiring health physics surveillance has occurred in the past decade, there has been a tremendous increase in the need for health physicists to fill regulatory requirements at existing facilities and the Decontamination and Decommissioning requirements of older facilities nearing the end of their operational lifetime. There is a continuing long-term need to provide trained health physicists with the special skills to meet these requirements. Decontamination and decommissioning programs require both basic and specialized health physics activities to be performed (1) to evaluate the radiation environment of the facility under consideration, (2) to establish the standards to which cleanup activities must be pursued, and (3) to adequately protect the personnel involved in the cleanup. Performance-based training, based on job task analysis, is an appropriate way to define the different types of health physics expertise required for D and D programs. Materials have been developed to describe potential job requirements in the radiation protection field, and the appropriate training goals to meet these requirements. 14 refs., 3 tabs. (ERA citation 11:010040)