News Archive
John Cardarelli, HPS President, 2021–2023
The Health Physics Society (HPS) annual meeting is right around the corner, and I wanted to take this opportunity to update everyone on the significant accomplishments during my first year as your president. These are in no particular order but demonstrate how the Society is working hard to remain relevant. First, we successfully completed the first International Radiation Protection Association North American Regional Congress in February. We had more than 400 participants from several North American countries, making it a hugely successful meeting both professionally and financially!
From this meeting, we established a relationship with Suriname to develop an eight-month webinar series for the new Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization project on the implementation of radiation safety programs in diagnostic radiology facilities in English-speaking Caribbean countries. We've completed three to date and are having great attendance. These will continue through November, so keep an eye out for future announcements.
Our "Policy on Nontechnical Policies and Statements" was finalized. Nontechnical statements and policies made on behalf of the Society can be exceptionally difficult and must consider whether our members are well represented. As a scientific organization, this document helps your leadership balance the challenge between acting on behalf of a vocal minority or a silent majority. This policy sets forth a process for any member to petition to create these policies or statements and is a great tool for members to ensure they are well represented by the membership.
The Professional Ethics and Standards Task Force was created and continues to address the diversity, equity, and inclusivity issues while also implementing a process to adjudicate ethical complaints. We hope to have this challenging work completed in the coming months, so stay tuned for more updates.
The HPS provided a venue, the Health Physics Journal, for publishing concerns about extravasation as part of a transparent process to strengthen the scientific exchange on this topic. Interest continues on Capitol Hill and our efforts have helped bring clarity to the issue while affording dissenting opinions a voice. To date, no additional information has come forward that would cause me to deviate from our original position expressed by Past President Goldin. What was it? Click this link to find out.
We've started or are rejuvenating collaboration with several other organizations, including the Nuclear Energy Institute, American Association of Physicists in Medicine, World Nuclear Association, National Registry of Radiation Protection Technologists, and American Nuclear Society. Since the pandemic, concerns about attacks on nuclear power plants in Ukraine, and advancements in collaborative technologies, we have been leading efforts to improve and increase our collaboration with these organizations to bring more consistent messaging and education to the public as well as improving services to our members (e.g., HPS Zoom account).
The HPS Science Support Committee will be conducting a virtual science teacher workshop on Sunday during the annual meeting in July. It is a free event for teachers and will serve as a springboard for future workshops.
I am honored to have led an effort to produce a series of videos that detail the history of the linear no-threshold (LNT) model. These videos, released in mid-April, have been viewed by more than 10,000 unique IP addresses, 700 cities, and 50 countries world-wide. The American Academy of Health Physics (AAHP) has approved 10 continuing education units to certified health physicists for watching all the videos. That's a tremendous value and I want to send a humble thank you to AAHP for doing this independently from our HPS efforts. We have never seen web traffic like this in the history of our Society! I can personally attest to the fact that we have several new members as a direct result of producing these videos. That said, there are some on the Board who expressed their dissatisfaction about the content, believing these were anti-LNT in nature or expressed opinions that the process may not have been as transparent as it could have been. My opinion is that HPS should be a place where controversial topics in our field are addressed. Dissenting opinions are welcomed and play a critical part of a healthy scientific debate. These videos present the history of the LNT model—not whether it is scientifically sound or not. We have many ideas for season two and are working to improve the process for producing future videos. Please share your comments, thoughts, and opinions associated with these videos with the entire HPS leadership. We need your feedback now, more than ever, to help us make the best decisions moving forward on this topic.
Finally, I want to recognize the Program Committee for putting together an incredible agenda for the annual meeting in Spokane. I look forward to seeing you there and listening to the three plenary sessions throughout the week (Monday: ICRP Review of the System of Radiation Protection, History of the LNT; Tuesday: NAS Low Dose Research, NCRP Activities; and Wednesday: RECA and EEIOCPA Compensation Programs).
None of these accomplishments could have been done without the 100s of volunteers within the Society—so I send my heartfelt thank you to all and look forward to working with you in my final year as your president.
