A radiation protection glossary for Radiation Protection Supervisors (RPS), Radiation Protection Advisers (RPA) and anyone else interesting in radiation safety terms and definitions. The glossary is a mixture of health physics , phrases related to radiation protection legislation, transport, practical safety, technical terms and similar.
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Published: Oct 12, 2018
The rem is the old unit of Equivalent Dose (or more accurately Dose Equivalent) and is derived by multiplying Absorbed Dose (in Rads) by a Quality Factor. The modern SI unit is the Gray (Gy). 1 Gy = 100rem. See equivalent dose for a explanation of why the absorbed dose is modified to reflect the relative effectiveness of Ionising Radiations in causing biological damage.
In radiation protection I spend most of my time explaining to clients what they do not need to worry about.