Thermo Fisher Scientific Conducts Radiation Monitoring Course Near Chernobyl

Thermo Fisher Scientific (Franklin, Massachusetts) announced that its Radiation Measurement and Security Instruments (RMSI) business has completed its 12th annual radiation monitoring techniques training course outside of Kiev, Ukraine, and within the vicinity of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The seminar and workshop, held May 3 through June 6, 2009, was designed to provide participants with the latest guidance on environmental, source, personnel, and equipment monitoring in case of a nuclear or other radiological emergency.

The training program was arranged by the company in cooperation with the European Centre of Technological Safety (TESEC), based in Kiev. According to the company, about a dozen attendees from Bahrain, the U.A.E. and the Czech Republic took part in the training, using advanced radiation detection devices, as well as some of their own monitoring equipment. The students in the workshop were taught the principles and practices of dosimetry with a focus on dose surveillance and contamination measurement. The session’s field exercise segment took place in the Exclusion Zone, which is the 30-km (19-mile) area surrounding the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power reactor that experienced a major radiological disaster in 1986. Although the zone is contaminated, it is protected against unlawful trespassers and is safe to enter for training or other scientific purposes, as long as normal protective clothing is worn and standard rules for radiation safety are followed.