Biomedical subjects

Mike Erdman

Publications and source records attributed to Mike Erdman.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Lessons learned in preparing to receive large numbers of contaminated individuals.

Traditionally, medical radiation emergency plans have provided for the receipt and care of a limited number of individuals, usually no more than two or three at any given time. Large numbers of contaminated, uninjured individuals cannot be effectively handled in the emergency departments (EDs) of hospitals as they present a risk of forcing the ED to close because of contamination and they divert ED personnel away from patients needing medical attention. Alternative locations and plans for handling large numbers of contaminated but otherwise uninjured patients must be considered. Such plans developed at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center (HMC) during the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant (TMI) were resurrected post 9/11 and used there in developing and upgrading plans and capabilities for handling large numbers of contaminated, uninjured individuals.

Disaster Planning↗

PubMed2004

Health physics considerations in medical radiation emergencies.

Preplanning and organization can facilitate the health physics response in the event of a medical radiation emergency. Anticipating the needs will allow for advanced assembly of needed information and supplies that would be useful in effectively responding to such events. Annual training of emergency care providers and an easy to read and understand poster will be of great benefit in guiding personnel until health physics arrives. Major events also need consideration, in advance, as they will place additional demands on health physics.

Disaster Planning↗

PubMed2004

Recent experiences with shielding a PET/CT facility.

Since the photon energy of positron emitting radionuclides is significantly higher than the maximum kVp of diagnostic x rays, designing a shielding plan for a PET/CT imaging facility requires careful consideration of future workloads and potential occupancy of surrounding spaces. The shielding calculations can be done by hand or with the aid of available software. In calculating the shielding, specific considerations arise. Some of these are presented as a checklist of things to consider when preparing to calculate the shielding required for a PET/CT facility.

Environmental Exposure↗

PubMed2004

Potential dose to nuclear medicine technologists from 99mTc-DTPA aerosol lung studies.

Air sampling performed during 190 Tc-labeled DTPA aerosol lung ventilation studies indicated that the maximum airborne concentration to which the nuclear medicine technologists might be exposed was 7.1 x 10(-1) Bq mL(-1) (1.9 x 10(-5) microCi mL(-1)). If a single technologist performed ALL the aerosol studies, at this maximum airborne concentration, based on the Annual Limit on Intake (ALI), the resulting dose equivalents could be either 1 mSv (100 mrem) to the lungs or 0.1 mSv (10 mrem) to the total body. However, the procedures are shared by the technical staff, the times of exposure are represented by only a fraction of the overall procedure time, and the average airborne concentrations were found to be more than an order of magnitude lower than the maximum. This resulted in a projected average annual dose equivalent of 7.0 x 10(-3) mSv (0.7 mrem) to the lungs or 7.0 x 10(-4) mSv (0.07 mrem) to the whole body from the performance of these procedures.

Aerosols↗