Radiation Safety & Health Physics Training Courses

Professional radiation safety training for health physicists and technicians

PTP seal Training and educating a highly-skilled workforce that can meet operational requirements in the areas of radiation safety and health physics is an essential part of protecting your workers, the public and the environment.

Since 1948, ORAU has instructed more than 30,000 scientists, physicians, engineers, educators, regulators and technicians in a variety of radiation safety and health physics courses through its Professional Training Programs (PTP). ORAU's PTP conducts a wide variety of health physics and radiation safety training courses, including our noteworthy, five-week Applied Health Physics course and multiple one-week offerings.

Online Health Physics Training

PTP now offers radiological sciences training courses available to complete online. These health physics courses are self-paced, interactive classes in a modular format that have been developed by the same team that provides the instructor-led training. They offer the same level of quality without requiring travel or attendance in a webinar. Enrollment in an online course will still include question and answer sessions with the PTP instructor-led team, similar to what you would experience in classroom training.

Classroom Health Physics Training

PTP provides high quality, instructor-led health physicist courses at our facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. These traditional classroom training courses offer face-to-face instruction and hands-on laboratory experiences to help health physics technicians and managers gain a greater understanding of radiation safety and health physics principles.

If you wish to discuss developing a customized radiation safety or health physics training course for delivery at your site, contact Tonya Bernhardt at 865.407.7053 or Tonya.Bernhardt@orau.org.

Why choose PTP online courses?

PTP online courses offer the same level of quality without requiring travel or attendance in a webinar. Enrollment in an online course still includes Q&A sessions with the PTP instructor-led team, similar to what you would experience in the classroom trainings.

Applied Health Physics

The use of radiation in industry, medicine, and education has created a need for persons trained in the principles of radiation safety and health physics. To meet this need, ORAU conducts a five-week training course—Applied Health Physics. The American Academy of Health Physics grants 40 Continuing Education Credits for completion of this course.

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Air Sampling for Radioactive Materials

This five-day, laboratory-oriented course introduces participants to the basic theories and mechanics of air sampling for radionuclides. Approximately 40% of the time is spent collecting and analyzing air samples; the remaining time is devoted to lectures.

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Environmental Monitoring

This five-day, laboratory-oriented course introduces participants to the basic theories and mechanics of environmental monitoring for radioactivity. Approximately 50% of the time is spent collecting and analyzing samples; the remaining time is devoted to lectures.

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Gamma Spectroscopy

This five-day, laboratory-oriented course covers the basics of radionuclide identification and quantification by gamma spectroscopy. Approximately 50% of the time will be spent in the laboratory.

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Health Physics Statistics

This five-day course introduces participants to the use of statistics in operational health physics. The course is divided between lectures and practical laboratory activities designed to reinforce important principles. Core concepts such as probability distributions, descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing are included to support more detailed discussions on uncertainty propagation and statistical tests.

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Introduction to Radiation Safety

This five-day lecture/laboratory course is an introduction to the basic science behind radiation safety and to common applications of radiation safety principles. Lectures include a description of common radiation sources, interactions of radiation with matter, biological effects, detection and measurement. Laboratory exercises emphasize radiation detection and measurement techniques using both fixed and portable instrumentation.

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Medical Radiation Safety Officer

This five-day lecture/laboratory course introduces course participants to current issues and technologies in the medical applications of radiation. The issues and technologies are discussed in the context of improving and developing an institution’s radiation safety program.

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MARSAME

This four-day training course focuses on the methodology and practical application of the MARSAME standard. This standard supplements the MARSSIM manual that has become the basis for real property final status surveys. The objective of the course is to provide attendees with a solid understanding of the MARSAME standard, practice through exercise and provide practical information related to its implementation.

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MARSSIM

This five-day course emphasizes the decision-making processes involved in the design and implementation of a MARSSIM-based decommissioning survey. Topics include an overview of radiological survey types, the data quality objectives process, selection and application of DCGLs, background reference area selection, survey instrument detection sensitivity, area classification, statistical design of surveys, measurement uncertainty and performing statistical tests.

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Occupational Internal Dosimetry

This five-day course is designed to provide course participants with a thorough understanding of current methods for determining radiation doses resulting from intakes of radioactive materials by workers. The course covers the basic concepts and principles of internal dose assessments, and describes the ICRP internal dosimetry systems and models currently in use in the United States and internationally.

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Radiation Safety Officer Training

This five-day lecture/laboratory course introduces course participants to relevant issues that influence the effectiveness of a radiation safety program. The course emphasizes a variety of administrative and technical issues that a radiation safety officer has to address. An interactive format offers the opportunity for instructor/group discussions to facilitate the learning process.

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Site Characterization in Support of Decommissioning

This five-day course emphasizes site evaluation, data planning, survey implementation and tools, data interpretation, and decision-making processes involved in the historical site assessment, scoping survey and characterization survey phases of decommissioning. Topics include: site assessment, surveys for radiological and chemical contaminants, data quality objectives and assessments, safety evaluations, planning and budgeting.

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