Contaminating incident investigation in medicine and biomedical research

Regardless of how well trained, experienced and careful individuals are, if they handle radioactive materials often enough they will eventually have a contaminating incident. When the incident occurs it is imperative that the proper actions are taken to control the incident, minimize contamination and exposure, assure that proper remediation is implemented, assure that the incident remains confined, that no others become contaminated or exposed and that effective remediation is documented. This paper discusses our approach to such incidents and discusses the incident report fonn and our philosophy of information recording.