Soin Leaders Encourage Radiation Safety at Inaugural Medical Staff Meeting

At the "Inaugural Medical Staff Meeting" for the Indu and Raj Soin Medical Center in Beavercreek, OH, Mike Caccamo, Interim Chief of the Medical Staff finished the meeting with  a message about reducing radiation exposure of patients.  He has also served as Chief of Radiology and Chief of Staff at Greene Memorial Hospital in Xenia, OH, sister hospital of Soin, which opened February 22nd this year.

So the radiologist encourages the new medical staff in the new hospital to reduce the use of radiation in alignment with the American College of Radiology guidelines.  He punctuated his message with a graphic showing that one CT scan of the chest equaled 500 chest x-rays worth of radiation.  I posted about that earlier this year here.

In 2010, over 80 million CT scans were performed in America.  The American Cancer Society published an article in February of this year lamenting this development and estimating that medical imaging is generating 28,000-30,000 cancers per year.

But wait, medical imaging also helps to save lives.  Physicians now are being asked to be more sensitive to cumulative radiation exposure of patients each time they order a scan.  Patients with recurrent kidney stones and those with incidental findings of pulmonary nodules on CT scans will be encouraged that their chances of excess exposure are diminishing.

At the same meeting, the President of The Soin Medical Center and Greene Memorial Hospital, Terry Burns spoke privately with me about his commitment to radiation safety.  He has worked to enhance the radiation safety and attitudes of Soin personnel.  These attitude shifts and others are important to the development of the "culture" of the new hospital.

I am pleased that the Soin medical staff was launched with the cautionary comments of Dr Caccamo.  I'm encouraged that we will have patients who can "Feel Safe at Soin."