"The protection of people from harmful effects of exposure to ionizing radiation, and the means for achieving this."
Ensuring the safety of both patients and healthcare professionals by monitoring radiation exposure levels.
Basic Radiation Physics: This includes the principles of radiation, types of radiation commonly used in medical applications, and their properties.
Radiation Units and Measurements: This involves understanding the different units of radiation measurements, such as exposure dose and activity, and their significance in radiation safety.
Radiation Protection Principles: This topic will cover the steps and procedures involved in limiting exposure to ionizing radiation.
Patient and Occupational Radiation Safety: This includes the importance of minimizing radiation exposure to patients, medical staff, and other individuals in a medical setting.
Radiation Risks and Dose Limits: This covers the potential harm associated with over-exposure to radiation, including long-term health effects and cancers.
Medical Imaging: This involves the various imaging technologies and medical physics principles associated with them, such as X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, and Ultrasound.
Radiopharmaceuticals: This encompasses the use of radioactive materials in diagnosis and treatment of various diseases.
Radiation Safety Regulations and Compliance: This includes understanding the rules and regulations set by the government and other agencies regulating medical radiation safety.
Radiation Detection and Instrumentation: This encompasses the different types of radiation detectors, including their general working principles, and calibration.
Radiation Emergency Response: This topic covers the general procedures to follow in case of radiation accidents or emergencies, including decontamination and proper disposal of radioactive materials.
Diagnostic Radiology: Diagnostic radiology deals with image diagnosis of the human body. Radiographic images, X-rays, CT scans, mammography, nuclear medicine scans, and MRI scans are some of the images one can expect from this type of medical physics.
Radiation Oncology: Radiation oncology deals with radiation treatment of cancer. Radiation therapy involves killing cancer cells with radiation. It is crucial to ensure that the radiation causes as little damage to surrounding healthy tissue as possible.
Nuclear Medicine: Nuclear medicine involves imaging and treating patients with radioactive materials. The radiation is used to diagnose and treat disease.
Health Physics: Health physics involves radiation safety and its effects on the human body. Health physicists use radiation detectors, health physics instrumentation, and research to prevent and mitigate exposure to harmful radiation.
Medical Dosimetry: Medical dosimetry deals with the calculation of the radiation dosage needed for cancer treatment. Medical dosimetrists use computer programs, radiation detectors, and patient-specific data to calculate the correct radiation dose.
Radiation Safety: Radiation safety deals with protecting people from the harmful effects of radiation. Radiation safety professionals use radiation detectors, shielding, personal protection equipment, regulation compliance, and training to ensure safe practices.
Radiation Protection: Radiation protection deals with evaluating and minimizing radiation exposure. Radiation protection measures involve reducing the amount of radiation and time of exposure to radiation to prevent overexposure.
Medical Imaging: Medical imaging involves imaging technology for diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. Medical imaging is used to examine bones, muscles, organs, and soft tissue in the body. Examples of medical imaging technology include X-rays, CT scans, MRI scans, ultrasound, and nuclear medicine scans.
Radiopharmacy: Radiopharmacy deals with developing, producing, and dispensing radiopharmaceuticals. Radiopharmaceuticals are used for medical imaging, diagnosis, and treatments.
Radiation Therapy: Radiation therapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses high-energy radiation to kill cancer cells. The goal of radiation therapy is to treat cancer while minimizing exposure to surrounding healthy tissue.
"Exposure can be from a source of radiation external to the human body or due to internal irradiation caused by the ingestion of radioactive contamination."
"At high exposures, it can cause 'tissue' effects, also called 'deterministic' effects due to the certainty of them happening, conventionally indicated by the unit gray and resulting in acute radiation syndrome. For low-level exposures, there can be statistically elevated risks of radiation-induced cancer, called 'stochastic effects' due to the uncertainty of them happening, conventionally indicated by the unit sievert."
"The avoidance or reduction of dose using the simple protective measures of time, distance, and shielding."
"The duration of exposure should be limited to that necessary."
"The distance from the source of radiation should be maximized."
"The source or the target should be shielded wherever possible."
"For external radiation personal dosimeters are used."
"For internal dose to due to ingestion of radioactive contamination, bioassay techniques are applied."
"The International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) and International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) publish recommendations and data."
"The protection of people from harmful effects of exposure to ionizing radiation."
"Conventionally indicated by the unit gray."
"Tissue effects due to the certainty of them happening, resulting in acute radiation syndrome."
"Statistically elevated risks of radiation-induced cancer due to the uncertainty of them happening."
"The duration of exposure should be limited to that necessary."
"The distance from the source of radiation should be maximized."
"The source or the target should be shielded wherever possible."
"For external radiation personal dosimeters are used."
"Bioassay techniques are applied."
"Recommendations and data used to calculate the biological effects on the human body of certain levels of radiation and advise acceptable dose uptake limits."