Professor Works to Protect Children from Harmful Radiation

The transitioning from film to digital technologies for x-rays, CT scans and other imaging methods proposes many more benefits in favor of the patient because the accuracy and convenience of graphic pictures of the human body in an electronic format. It could help save lives lost because of the microscopic details. The change also worries patients because the digital imaging makes the amount of radiation used to create the image harder to judge, and because of that excess exposure has occurred.
Radiation levels should be monitored efficiently when children are receiving treatment with digital imaging because they shouldn’t be exposed to the same dosage of radiation equivalent to an adult. Radiation will have more of an impact on children because their cells are growing consistently, indicating a longer life span than an adult’s.
UCBA Professor of Radiologic Technology Tracy Herrmann is a member of the Image Gently campaign, which is sponsored by the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging, and she is trying to raise awareness in the imaging community about the need to adjust radiation dosages and to inform parents of the ways that they can monitor the dosage of radiation that their child is given.
“We want parents to understand the questions that they need to ask their child’s doctor or health care provider to make sure their child is not going to be exposed to unnecessarily high doses of radiation,” said Herrmann, who has been a certified radiologic technologist since 1985
Those questions include the name of the test that needs to be performed on the child; whether the test involves ionizing radiation; how the exam will improve the child’s health care; whether there are any alternatives to the procedure that don’t use radiation but are equally effective; and whether the child will be receiving a “child’s size” radiation dose.
As a strong supporter of the Image Gently campaign, Professor Herrmann became a key contributor in the development of the Federal Drug Administration’s (FDA) Digital Radiography Safety Checklist to assist radiologic technologists in using proper protocol while checking the radiation dose before, during, and after an x-ray. “This is a protocol that we want all radiology professionals to use every time they provide an x-ray to a child,” Herrmann explained. “It’s another way to make checking the radiation levels automatic.”
Professor Herrmann is also currently working with a team to introduce additional pediatric safety materials related to fluoroscopy for the FDA, and this past summer she participated in the FDA’s Public Meeting: Device Improvements for Pediatric X-ray Imaging and was a heavy hitter in a group that earned the FDA Leveraging Collaboration Award.
Along with her involvement in the Image Gently campaign, Herrmann has also previously served as chairman of a task force for the American Society of Radiologic Technologists that produced a white paper titled “Best Practices in Digital Radiography.”
For more information about the Image Gently campaign, visit www.imagegently.com. More information on the Allied Health Department at UCBA can be found at www.ucblueash.edu/alliedhealth.