Educational Needs of Hospital Personnel for Medical Response to Nuclear Injuries

Introduction. Application of nuclear technology is developed in various fields such as industry, basic and medical sciences. So that, the nuclear incidents and nuclear injuries is inevitable. In this report, educational needs of hospital personnel for effective medical management and response to nuclear injuries are investigated. Material and Methods. In this investigation, the educational needs of six hospitals were studied by using of designed questionnaire. 137 of volunteer responders among hospital managers, medical emergency department, nuclear medicine and radiology sections were participated in this study.Results. In an actual nuclear event, key hospital personnel including responders in this study would be called on to focus medical responses. Unfortunately, the obtained results showed that they did not pass suitable courses and training for responding to nuclear injuries. Also, based on this result, in some fields such as personnel protection and medical syndrome of ionization radiation the information of responders were acceptable, but some other fields such as medical management protocols for nuclear injuries, radiation detectors and biodosimetry, their knowledge were insufficient.Conclusion. Because of deployment of nuclear technology, training and preparing of hospital personnel for medical management and response to nuclear injuries is necessary. Notwithstanding some shortcomings, because of enthusiastic and scientific background among responders, creation and development of preparedness among responders is completely conceivable.