Radiation exposure during cardiology fellowship training

We report catheterization laboratory personnel dose per case during parallel use of two laboratories from different manufacturers, Initially, four working positions were monitored, Review of the data from the first 110 cases showed a wide range of dose per case, Measurements were then limited to diagnostic coronary angiography cases in which a cardiology fellow was the primary operator, On a per case basis, the dose was higher when a fellows was in the laboratory with pulsed progressive fluoroscopy or was in fellowship year one, The increased dose for first year fellows was more related to increased fluoroscopy time than to cine angiography time, This study emphasizes the importance of close supervision of cardiology fellows early in their training to limit dose to patients and personnel, and it underlines the importance of each catheterization laboratory routinely having the actual personnel dose per case measured.