Radiation safety education in vascular surgery training

Abstract

The lack of formal radiation safety training in respondents may reflect an inadequate state of radiation safety education and practices among U.S. vascular surgery residents.

Transatlantic Multispecialty Consensus on Fundamental Endovascular Skills: Results of a Delphi Consensus Study

“…On the other hand, "The principles of radiation safety and ALARA principles" were not considered to be fundamental. This is no surprise since Bordoli et al 25 have suggested that there might be a lack of formal radiation safety training in the United States for vascular surgery residents. In some countries a radiology technician is present during every endovascular intervention to adjust the C-arm, to use the aortic pump, but also to ensure that each team member is protected by wearing lead aprons.…”

Radiation exposure to the eyes and thyroid during C-arm fluoroscopy-guided cervical epidural injections is far below the safety limit

“…Therefore, it is possible that the thyroid protectors and lead aprons used in the current study could have had defects, causing a skewing of our results. Many physicians are not properly educated on the importance of protective equipment and the harm that occupational radiation exposure can cause [31][32][33]. A pilot study on fellows with at least one year of clinical practice experience showed that a mere 33% of physicians had received proper radiation safety training.…”

Factors Associated with Reduced Radiation Exposure, Cost, and Technical Difficulty of Inferior Vena Cava Filter Placement and Retrieval

“…Invasive cardiologists, for example, demonstrate poor adherence to radiation protection (10), and not all fellows receive formal radiation education (11). Similarly, nearly half of vascular surgery fellows do not receive formal radiation training (12,13). Th e lack of emphasis on dose reduction among non-radiology-trained operators may account for the more than double radiation doses and fl uoroscopy times found in OR cases, as there was no difference in the quality of the fl uoroscopic equipment or average years of operator experience.…”