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The radiation protection program at any institution must not be a static entity, but one that is continually being scrutinized and evaluated to introduce continuous quality improvements. The healthiest programs will have a chief Radiation Safety Officer (RSO), perhaps an assistant RSO, and a number of other professional HPs and HP technicians, and, in addition, an oversight board comprised of a number of persons with HP and other scientific expertise. This board should meet periodically (e.g., monthly or quarterly) to receive a report composed by the RSO over the period’s activities, incidents, and program changes.

Our basic definition of health physics included concepts of the protection of humans and the environment from the harmful effects of radiation while permitting its beneficial uses. It is practically a universally accepted axiom that protection of the environment is in the best interests of the human race, and even with this consideration aside, most reasonable persons recognize an ethical responsibility for people to protect the environment that they affect by their very existence and their activities. Protection of human beings remains at the center of our concerns when monitoring the environment for the presence and migration of radionuclides. People live best when living in harmony with nature, of course, so a clean and healthy environment has indirect benefits for all of us as well.We are always concerned about potential carcinogens moving through environmental pathways and possibly reaching human receptors.

Treatment of the safety issues related to uses of nonionizing radiation is not part of the routine practice of health physics by the vast majority of professionals. In those instances in which these applications are encountered, however, the health physicist may be responsible for understanding and managing the issues involved.