The President's Message

We are halfway through our operating year and plans are underway for the next technical session of our section at the annual meeting. The technical session has always been one of the main services of the section – the bringing together of accelerator health physicists from around the world to discuss topics of interest in our forum. President-elect Sayed Rokni has issued his call for papers in this newsletter. Please participate and help make this session the highlight of the meeting.

The continuing objective of our section is to promote our mutual interests in accelerator radiological protection. Our bylaws state that we seek to achieve this by providing

• improved communication between those involved in accelerator radiation protection activities;
• forums for discussion and resolution of scientific, technical, and administrative problems related to accelerator radiation protection; and
• coordination between the development of accelerator regulatory and administrative standards, and relevant standards under development by private and professional organizations.

Are you satisfied with the accomplishments of the section in working toward these objectives? A brief review of these efforts may help:

1. As mentioned above, the technical session annually brings together accelerator health physicists.
2. We seek to recognize the technical accomplishments of accelerator health physicists through nomination as fellows of the society and for other awards. In recent years we have successfully nominated Geoffrey Stapleton and Don Cossairt as fellows and Ralph Thomas as a G. William Morgan lecturer at the annual meeting.
3. We seek to encourage the development of the next generation of accelerator health physicists through the recently created H. Wade Patterson Memorial Award for the best student paper on an accelerator-related topic at the annual meeting.
4. We supported the 1997 midyear meeting on radiation-generating machines and we are actively supporting another midyear meeting on the same topic for 2007.
5. We issue a quarterly newsletter to all members of the section to provide another avenue for regular communication.
6. Members of the section are serving as co-chairs of the ANSI standard N43.1, "Radiological Safety in the Design and Operations of Particle Accelerators," currently under development.

How do you think we are doing? Are there other issues that we should focus on that are important to the accelerator community? Please contact me or any other member of the board if you have thoughts on these questions. Your active participation in the section also helps.

Best wishes for the holiday season and the New Year.