U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

License Condition, "... Used by or Under the Supervision of..."

HPPOS-025 PDR-9111210141

Title: License Condition, "... Used by or Under the

Supervision of ..."

See the Interpretive Guide from the IE Manual entitled as

above and dated October 1, 1979. It provides guidance on

the degree of supervision to be exercised by authorized

users, including medical users. An authorized user need

not be present at all times but must be readily available

for consultation. This guidance applies to all materials

licensees except radiography; the requirements for

supervision of radiographic operations are defined in 10

CFR 34. HPPOS-145 contains a related topic.

In developing the following interpretation with members of

the NRC staff and OELD, it was concluded that it was

impractical to try and define numerical times and distances

with respect to supervision availability because of the

wide variations in circumstances. Similarly, it was

impractical to define the frequency of verbal orders or the

performance of audits by supervision since these would

depend in part on the degree of changes in operations,

equipment, personnel, etc. Therefore, considerable

judgment by the inspector (s) in implementing the guidance

will continue to be required.

1. An authorized user named on an NRC license is

considered to be supervising the use of radioactive

materials when he directs personnel in the conduct of

operations involving the licensed material. This does not

imply that the authorized user must be present at all times

during the use of such materials. However, the authorized

user / supervisor is responsible for assuring that personnel

under his supervision have been properly trained and

instructed.

2. The authorized user / supervisor is therefore

responsible for the supervision of operations involving the

use of radioactive materials whether he is present or

absent. When absent, the authorized user should be

available for consultation (by telephone) in a reasonable

amount of time commensurate with the need for consultation,

based on the adequacy of the training of those personnel

under the user's supervision.

3. For medical programs, the supervising physician

should be located sufficiently close to the hospital in the

event he is needed to personally supervise a procedure or

interpret the results of a procedure. "Sufficiently close"

cannot be defined for the reasons stated above; but the

supervisor should be in the same city as the activity or

close to the city (if it is a small city or town) so that

he can get to the facility in a reasonable period of time.

(Many physicians use a paging system so they can be alerted

to call a hospital if needed.) A supervisor that goes on

vacation or cannot be reached is not considered to be

supervising. Further, for physicians licensed to

supervise, it is necessary that they be available to

interpret the results of a medical procedure whether or not

they actually perform the scans, give injections, etc.

Regulatory references: 10 CFR 30, 10 CFR 35, License

Conditions

Subject codes: 1.3

Applicability: Byproduct Material