For years, the Health Physics (HP) Corner was a regular feature in the CRPA Bulletin. It drifted away in 2017, but we are very excited to see it resurrected by Jeff Sandeman!. In this first installment, Jeff carries on from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) licensee outreach presentation on contamination monitoring and runs through some verification calculations and examples.
Grant Cubbon interviews Darin Street, radiation protection and control lead at the Canadian Light Source Synchrotron, and asks him about how he got his start in the industry, his experience obtaining the CARP(R) designation, and how the knowledge and professional connections he has gained have benefited his career.
Halfway through his term, CRPA President Jeff Fleming remarks on the organization’s busy past year and looks to the future, hinting at some exciting things to come in 2024. Jeff encourages members to reach out and lets them know how to get involved with the organization.
Instead of forecasting CRPA’s plans for the coming year, our editor in chief, Dave Niven, looks back on the organization’s incredible past year. He also welcomes new board members, celebrates the newly formed social media team, reflects on the organization’s first in-person conference since the pandemic, and extends gratitude to the President’s Task Force on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion before sharing his excitement for all the amazing things to come in 2024.
There is lots of news in the CRPA(R) Prep article for this issue. We congratulate the newest CRPA(R)s who passed the exam held in Halifax in May, announce that we will be holding CRPA(R) exams separately from the annual conference again this fall, let you in on plans for an exam preparation course, advise you of the recently adopted recognition status expiry date, and confirm that there will be another exam at the annual CRPA conference in Edmonton in June 2024.
Jeff starts his first President’s Message with reflections on CRPA’s success in Halifax—he says the dedication of CRPA members really shone at the first post-Covid conference. Over the summer, he says CRPA has started to work on the logistics of hosting the CRPA(R) exams separate from the conference this fall and hints at some exciting learning and growth opportunities being mapped out by the Professional Development Committee.
Over the years, Dave has written a lot about the benefits of attending conferences, not the least of which are the relationships people build at these events. In this editorial, he remembers one of his first “conference friends,” Adelene Gaw, who passed away in June, was a constant presence within CRPA, as well as the International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA). She was also a regular contributor to the CRPA Bulletin. She will be missed.
Grant had to miss the recent CRPA conference in Halifax to attend RadSynch23—a conference held every other year for radiation safety personnel from synchrotron facilities around the world. Grant says the research and experiences shared at the conference (which he summarizes in his editorial), coupled with meeting and renewing contact with synchrotron radiation protection colleagues, makes attendance at the conference invaluable.
Valerie takes us on a creative journey with a bright-eyed, bushy tailed RSO who is starting out in a new position. While the surrounds can seem mystifying and unfamiliar, she reassures us that the journey is less daunting when you can reach out to others for guidance—if for nothing else than to see who else is out there and to share lessons learned, best practices, and solutions that can be modified and adapted. That, she says, is the most important value of CRPA membership.
Dave was very excited to be writing an editorial for the first conference issue of the CRPA Bulletin since 2019! While he concedes that there may be a bit of conference rust to shake off after four years, he is looking forward to the professional development, networking, and socializing—especially at the hospitality suite, which he says is one of the things that make the CRPA conference stand out from other events. He has no doubt that everyone attending the conference in Halifax this year will make up for lost time.
In this issue, we’ve invited a couple of people who recently prepared for and successfully completed the CRPA(R) registration exam — Devin Sullivan and Laila Omar Nazir — to tell us about their experiences. We asked them to tell us why they wrote the exam, how they prepared, what their strategy was for writing the exam, and what advice they would give to someone thinking about writing the exam.
