The goals of radiation protection are to limit exposure
ionizing radiation both for the patient, for the
people nearby and for the healthcare team.
Many elements will contribute to this management
radiation protection:

 

• The premises must be adequately protected (type
  walls, plumbing, etc ...). A plan of the premises is submitted and
  controlled by the OFSP . Our structure has 2 validated premises
  by the FOPH: a radiology room for x-rays and
  an operating room for fluoroscopic procedures .
   

• Rooms intended for the use of ionizing radiations must be marked to prevent the untimely entry of people while examinations are being carried out.
   

• The devices used benefit from an annual validation controlled by the OFSP in order to ensure their optimal functioning.
   

• The use of devices and the control of radiation protection measures is the responsibility of a radiation protection expert (training carried out at the Institute of Applied Radiophysics of Lausanne (IRA) and validated by the OFSP ). For our center, both Dr J. Favre and Dr S. Morrone are certified experts in radiation protection.
   

• Doctors, medical assistants and other workers in the operating room and in the radiology room benefit from continuous training by the radiation protection expert.
   

• All workers in the radiology room and in the operating room are monitored by a personal dosimeter rented from the IRA. A report of individual doses is provided monthly by the IRA and posted in the staff locker room for everyone to review.
   

• An exposure register is kept to know precisely in which actions each medical assistant participated as well as the doses provided by the fluoroscopy for these actions.
   

• The devices used in our center are of the latest generation for both x-rays and fluoroscopy, resulting in a significant reduction in the doses used compared to older generation devices.
   

• All the procedures are performed by experienced doctors with optimal viewing conditions (carbon table, multiple screens, optimized ambient light), which considerably limits the duration of fluoroscopy.
   

• The size of the operating room is slightly more than 30 m2, which allows an optimal distance between the source of rays and the responders. As the dose decreases with the square of the distance, this has a significant impact on the dose received by the personnel.
   

• In addition to personal radiation protection measures (lead apron, lead thyroid protection, lead glasses and gloves), we use a movable leaded partition and lead flaps are installed under the operating table.
   

• A pulsed fluoroscopy mode is used rather than continuous fluoroscopy, which significantly reduces the dose received by the patient.
   

• For fluoroscopy, the plane sensor is brought as close as possible to the patient (while leaving sufficient working space for the operator) to reduce the indirect radiation which is the most harmful.
   

• Patient monitoring by camera rather than direct monitoring is performed for x-rays which prevents accidental exposure of personnel.