ML22153A340
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| ML22153A340 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/08/2022 |
| From: | Katherine Tapp Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards |
| To: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| References | |
| Download: ML22153A340 (7) | |
Text
Health Physicists: The Next Generation Building Capacity for our Radiation Protection Future Katie Tapp
Health Physics - Growing Needs, Shrinking Capacity Unless We Act!
- Experienced staff retiring or leaving the field
- A retirement tsunami was predicted, and departures anticipated
- Need to hire and train new staff
- Training takes time
- Fewer available candidates in health physics / medical physics
- Need to retain and engage the staff we have
- Community supports retention
Partnering to grow our PIPELINE health physics expertise COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Pipeline
- Providing NRC grants for training of new radiation protection professionals.
- Increasing the number of champions for university outreach.
- Hiring in related fields to supplement traditionally trained health physicists.
Development
- The NRC has numerous Health Physics classroom and laboratory courses to train NRC and Agreement State Staff
- NRC is building agility through cross training, such as materials health physicists who can qualify as reactor health physicists.
- NRC supports numerous external training opportunities such as conference attendance and private courses.
Community
- NRC Health Physics community is selfidentifying in house skills and gaps across various health physics specialties.
- Strengthening the network across the agency for health physicists to reach out to each other and meet work needs, including a new internal website containing staff contact info and specialties.
- Monthly community meetings with hot topic presentations and round tables to share interesting radiation protection projects.
- Established an agencywide Certified Health Physics study group.
Partnering
- Collaborating with International Atomic Energy Agency and National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.
- Participating in professional societies such as Health Physics Society.
- Working with Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors to design a framework for a resourcematching program that would provide for developmental rotations and/or allow qualified staff in one regulators jurisdiction to fill a temporary need in another jurisdiction.