PERSONAL RADIATION MONITORING

1. About This Course

The Personal Radiation Monitoring course is aimed to give general practitioners, allied personnel, radiographers, nurses and radiation workers a basic understanding of requirements for monitoring your occupation radiation exposure in the workplace. It has been accredited for 1 HPCSA clinical CPD point.

2. About the Presenter

Dr Tobias Kotzé

Dr Tobias Kotzé is a consultant medical physicist. He was previously the deputy-Director and head of the Radionuclide section at the Directorate Radiation Control, SAHPRA and a medical physicist at Groote Schuur Hospital. He is currently a SAHPRA Technical Advisory Committee member for Radiation Protection, as well as a member of the IRPA (International Radiation Protection Association) Task Group on Radiation Protection Training.

3. Who Should Attend

Cardiologists, vascular surgeons, radiologists, general practitioners, allied health professionals, nurses, radiographers, radiation workers and anybody with an interest in radiation protection.

4. Course Benefits

This presentation provides training for radiologists, radiographers and other relevant medical staff in dose optimisation in mammography. It fulfils the regulatory requirement of the Directorate Radiation Control (SAHPRA).

5. Presentation Outline

Training on Personal Radiation Monitoring

5.1 Background

Topics include: Various risks in life, what is safe?, radiation and risk, regulatory authority, and the radiation control program in SA.

5.2 Radiation overexposures

Topics include: What is a radiation over-exposure?, investigation process, and cumulative doses

5.3 Radiation effects

Topics include: Immediate effects, delayed effects, risk of cancer, and sterility

5.4 Radiation symptoms

Topics include: Vomiting and diarrhea, bleeding, cataracts, anemia, and reduction in number of blood cells.

5.5 Personal dosimetry

Topics include: Who must be monitored?, personal protective equipment, thyroid shields, replacing dosimeters, Thermoluminescent Dosimetry (TLD), Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL), electronic personal dosimeters, ALARA principle, typical occupational doses, and dosimeter position.

5.6 Monitoring pregnant staff

Topics include: Reporting pregnancy, safe workplaces during pregnancy, radiation risk to the unborn baby, special measures during pregnancy, radiation effects in utero, and risk of malformations pregnancy.

5.7 Dose limits

Topics include: Radiation worker dose limits, public dose limits, and chromosome damage threshold dose.

5.8 Regulatory requirements

Topics include: Radiation safety culture, obligations and responsibilities, training, monitoring, dose register, dose assessment, dose allocation, dose history, and registration process as radiation worker.

5.9 Reducing staff radiation doses

Topics include: Equipment factors, and operator-dependent practices.

6. Course Dates for 2026

Presentations have been scheduled for 27 January 2026 and 28 July 2026, from 07h00 till 08h00 AM (including Q&A).

7. Course Fee

CPD certificate fee: R300.00 + R45.00 (VAT) = R345.00
(free for Life Healthcare (affiliated) employees)

8. CPD Certificate

HPCSA CPD accreditation by the University of Cape Town Faculty of Health Sciences.
A CPD certificate for 1 HPCSA clinical CPD point will be issued to all attendees registered with the HPCSA or the Nursing Council of South Africa.

9. On-line Presentation Information

Please check our website https://radiation-consulting.co.za/personal-radiation-monitoring/ for the latest dates.
You do not have to register for these training meetings, you can just join. The MS Teams meeting ID and Passcode are as follows (it will be the same Meeting ID and Passcode for all the meetings in 2023):

Meeting ID: 415 675 145 857 2
Passcode: Wh7pz2vq

The meetings will only open 10 minutes before the start for participants to join (you can only join once the host has opened the meeting).
An attendance register will be automatically created by the MS Teams platform, which will indicate for how long you have been part of the meeting.
You can get only one CPD certificate per calendar year, irrespective of how many meetings you attend during the year.
A PDF copy of the presentation will be provided with all certificates.
More than 125 presentations in dose optimisation already given since 2016.

The presentation is also available on Moodle for Life Healthcare employees.