I am looking forward to the special session of the Accelerator Section at the Health Physics Society (HPS) annual meeting. It is scheduled to begin Tuesday morning at 8:15 AM, starting with the G. William Morgan Lecture presented by Graham Stevenson, our distinguished colleague from the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). I hope that many of you will be present for his lecture. Our president-elect, Sayed Rokni, has done a wonderful job in organizing this year’s session. You can check the entire agenda on the HPS website (go to page 24). Please don’t forget the annual business meeting of our section. We will meet at the end of the morning session at approximately 11:45 AM. See you there!
I also hope that you will take the time to review Ralph Thomas’s comments in this newsletter regarding several recommendations made by the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) in its Publication 60. Ralph is very concerned about radiation-weighting factors assigned to neutrons over a wide energy range and thinks it is high time that the Accelerator Section got involved in this discussion. There are several other questions he raises.
Perhaps some of you are like me - I have been vaguely aware of the discussions on these issues for years but have never taken the time to really understand the technical questions and the potential impact to accelerator radiation protection down the line, which Ralph believes is very significant. Ralph has suggested that the section create a working group to review these issues and to provide commentary to the ICRP. The section’s board of directors will consider this suggestion at its meeting in Washington and will report to the section at the business meeting.
So take a good look at Ralph’s article and let me or another board member know what you think. I am very interested in hearing from you and I hope to see you at the annual meeting.