Abstract
Medical treatment of the worker accidentally overexposed to radiation is not an appropriate area for action levels. Special medical problems for which action levels might be considered include the handling of the pregnant employee who works in a radiation area, the handling of cases of skin and wound contamination, work restrictions on individuals with internal contamination, and the need for a slit lamp biomicroscopy to detect lens opacities. The medical justifications for action levels are briefly reviewed, and the general practices of medical departments in 17 AEC contractor installations are reported. In general, AEC contractor physicians resisted the idea of using a prescribed exposure level to determine a medical decision. The one area where an action level could be tied to a specific exposure level was the application of restrictions for individuals receiving internal contamination. However, this difficult problem was being handled in many different ways in the installations surveyed.