The 2008 midyear meeting of the Health Physics Society (HPS) is beginning to fall into place. Kevin Nelson, the HPS President-Elect, called recently to congratulate the section on its progress toward organizing the 2008 midyear. He said, "This is the most organized midyear I have ever been associated with or heard of. If this midyear isn’t well attended, it will not be because of lack of hard work on the part of the section."
Kamran Vaziri, Lorraine Day, and I met at Fermi Lab on April 19 to discuss the midyear technical content and put together a preliminary list of session topics and kickoff speakers for the topics we designated. This meeting occurred immediately following an U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) stakeholder meeting on OSHA accelerator rules. (It is not very often that the president-elect, president, and past president have the opportunity to meet together.) In addition, we put together a list of desirable professional enrichment program (PEP) class topics. With concurrence from Rob Sitsler (the HPS Program Committee Chair), we decided that it was best to list desirable PEP topics rather than let presenters volunteer to present a PEP class of their choice. Following the meeting, I began the process of contacting potential PEP presenters and plenary speakers. I also contacted Kevin Nelson to make sure he agreed with the direction we were taking with the plenary session. He presented the information before the HPS board and they ratified our plan.
For the plenary session, the plan is to have speakers from across the accelerator community speak about accelerator and accelerator health physics advances over the past decade since our last meeting and to look toward future needs. The plenary session will start with an introduction by Kevin Nelson followed by a political speaker (possibly Oakland Mayor Dellums). We will then look at the history of accelerator health physics from Ralph Thomas’s perspective and follow with presentations concerning medical, homeland security, research, and ion implant accelerators.
We are beginning to see the fruit of advertising with the poster--we have had two enquiries from India and Nigeria.
The preliminary agenda for the 2008 midyear meeting on "Radiation-Generating Devices" is nearly complete. Several world-renowned speakers have agreed to present at the plenary session or act as kick-off speakers for the meeting sessions. In addition, we have obtained a full agenda of experts to present the PEP classes and continuing education lectures (CELs). The 2008 midyear meeting is your opportunity to learn from and interact with the best in the field of radiation-generating devices.
Monday, January 28, 2008
We expect that the meeting content will mandate that two sessions run concurrently each day. Current preliminary plans are to set up six sessions per day for a total of 18 separate sessions over the three-day meeting period. The preliminary list of sessions includes the following:
We also expect that there will be at least four additional session topics, depending on the abstracts received. Many of the session chairs are already appointed and introductory speakers have already agreed to present. Please realize that this material is preliminary and subject to change, but the planning process is already fairly mature.
We encourage everyone involved with the health physics aspects of radiation-generating devices to consider submitting an abstract. Abstracts can be submitted on-line. Further information about the midyear is also available on-line.
As I said earlier, Lorraine Day and I attended an OSHA stakeholders meeting in Chicago, Illinois, on April 19. OSHA has one health physicist working for them and they say they have a mandate from Congress to write laws governing radiation safety at accelerators. I described the ANSI N43.1 standard to them and the breadth of the accelerators it covers. When I was finished, they told me I had expanded their vision of how many accelerators their law might affect by a factor of 10. Lorraine and I tried to give them a feel for the hazards of accelerators, the radiation detection instrumentation used at accelerators, etc. None of the information we provided (even though their knowledge was very limited) seemed to discourage or derail their attempt to write laws governing radiation safety at accelerators. They said they would hire consultants to write the material.