Derek Smith Discussion week 2 Flint, MI The majority of the population, young or old, remembers the broken telephone

game, also known as Chinese whispers, in which a message is whispered to one player and carried down the line to the final player and at the end the message is announced out loud. In almost every situation the final message wasnt even close or skewed to a point of nonsense. Unfortunately the same is true to the public being informed about the safe use of radiation. The problem lies mostly in the fact that the public eye has not received, encountered, or interpreted the education of radiation safety to a full understanding. Hendee1 reports that in the early 1990s articles started to describe the frequency of medical mistakes that put patients at risk, and in January of 2010 a series of articles in the New York Times expressed errors in radiation oncology that impacted patients well-being. The public naturally had a fear of radiation treatment and the problems that could arise from it. The American Association of Physicists in Medicine and the American Society of Radiation Oncology responded to this with a working meeting entitled Safety in Radiation Therapy: A Call to Action. The fear of radiation in society was undoubtedly of importance to the radiation community and since there have been many actions taken to educate the community, process and eliminate errors, as well as steps taken to ensure the safety of cancer care patients through established safety protocols. According to Watson2 there are more than 19,500 computed tomography scans performed daily in the United States. With such a large number there comes a larger possibility for error. However the accidents and errors that involve radiation exposure are rare, but the majority are attributed to the amount of radiation exposure that may occur or to reactions to iodine contrast agents. With this understanding, an international conference that included all healthcare was held in 1993 in Rancho Los Verdes, CA to organize and examine the causes and consequences of extreme errors in medicine, and thereafter programs to reduce medical errors are in the process or have been established. The radiation oncology community specifically focused on radiation
1

Hendee W, Herman M. Improving patient safety in radiation oncology. Medical Physics [serial online]. January 2011;38(1): 78-82. Available from MEDLINE with Full Text, Ipswich,MA. Acessed October 22,2013. 2 Watson D. Radiaton safety. AORN journal [serial online]. August 2010;92(2):233-235. Available from: CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 22,2013.

treatment errors, the reasoning behind errors, quality control steps that can aid in the process of eliminating more errors, and integrating these processes in the rapidly growing and sophisticated technology. The reasoning behind radiation oncology errors were summarized to be related to the complexity of cancer itself, the details of communication between treatment team members, and the involvement of humans throughout the treatment regimen. Hendee3 explains that in 2010 the New York Times started focusing on accidents in radiation therapy with the first article titled The Radiation Boom: Radiation Offers New Cures and Ways to Do Harm. With these articles the fear for radiation therapy has grown, however these articles havent done the best job in articulating the steps that have been taken to fix these problems as well as the complete context of each accident. Although these articles place a stigma on radiation therapy, the radiation oncology community uses this to move forward and listen to the fears of the community to help them have a better understanding of radiation therapy as well as the new safety guidelines established to ensure a safe dose of radiation. In June of 2010 a meeting titled Safety in Radiation Therapy: A Call to Action, was held in Miami to address the growing concern of errors in radiation oncology. Hendee4 mentions that the purpose of this meeting was to address the causes of mistakes as well as equipment errors to make radiation therapy much safer for patients via the development of approaches to address and fix these problems. These approaches included: uncluttering therapy workstations, debugging inadequate warning systems, training staff to follow day-to-day protocols, have users attend more education product management sessions, etc. Throughout this meeting it was understood that treatment approached must be fault-tolerant to catch and correct errors before they can harm the patient. There was also a number of recommendations that have been established to help aid the safety of radiation treatments. Examples of this include: the simplification of device control, workstations designed for principles of human factors, providing improved early warning, etc. It is evident that the collaboration of radiation oncology organizations are aware of the patients fear and are doing their absolute best to ensure and educate them to have a sense of comfort when receiving radiation treatment. For example
3

Hendee W, Herman M. Improving patient safety in radiation oncology. Medical Physics [serial online]. January 2011;38(1): 78-82. Available from MEDLINE with Full Text, Ipswich,MA. Acessed October 22,2013.
4

Hendee W, Herman M. Improving patient safety in radiation oncology. Medical Physics [serial online]. January 2011;38(1): 78-82. Available from MEDLINE with Full Text, Ipswich,MA. Acessed October 22,2013.

Watson5 mentions that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also launched an initiative to reduce preventable radiation. Their goal along with all radiation oncology organizations is to support the benefits gained from medical imaging, and radiation treatment while also minimizing the risk. This initiative can be strengthened with an over-all commitment to promote radiation safety. The New York Times wasnt wrong for informing the community of possible radiation effects. The unfavorable reaction is unfortunate, but with adversity comes the ability to grow stronger, and it is the goal of each radiation oncology employee to maintain and strengthen the radiation safety of each patient. If the correct steps are taken to help inform the public of the great benefits of radiation treatment, the concluding message will be the encouraging truth behind the great advancements in radiation therapy.

Watson D. Radiaton safety. AORN journal [serial online]. August 2010;92(2):233-235. Available from: CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 22,2013.