The Council Directive 2013/59/EURATOM of 5 December 2013 [1], laying down basic safety standards for protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionizing radiation, emphasizes in its fourth chapter that Member States shall establish an adequate legislative and administrative framework ensuring the provision of appropriate radiation protection education, training and information to all individuals whose tasks require specific competences in radiation protection. The provision of training and information shall be repeated and documented at appropriate intervals.
The contents of the former Directive have been incorporated into the Spanish legislation [2,3], establishing basic Radiation Protection education as part of both the programmes of medical schools and the residency training programs of medical specialities.
According to current legislation, this basic education for medical residents is the responsibility of the Medical Physics and Radiation Protection Departments of university hospitals.
The European Commission Guidelines on Radiation Protection Education and Training for health practitioners, 116 and 175 [4,5], establish that such training should include basic Radiation Protection tuition, needed both by the referrers and the practitioners themselves. Knowledge on patient radiation protection such as biological effects of ionizing radiation, justification of exposures, risk-benefit analysis and typical doses for each type of examination are important basis to be learnt by trainees during Radiation Protection courses. Guideline 175 establishes the appropriate level of education for different categories of physicians, according to their responsibility and level of involvement in radiological procedures, from referrers to physicians directly involved with ionizing radiations.
Nowadays, some basic Radiation Protection education is already being provided to medical students at Medical University Schools.
Since 2007, additional basic Radiation Protection education has been established during the residency period of medical education, as part of the medical specialist training programme [6,7]. Initially, this tuition was provided during the 1st year of the residency, but since 2015 it has been expanded with a second basic course, aimed at every resident and provided to them during the 3rd and 5th year of residency.
First level of basic course was analysed and evaluated as a tool for optimization and improvement of the training programme in previous studies [8].
The objective of this study is to continue with the analysis and evaluation of such education and training programmes, widening the scope of consideration on the Radiation Protection education developed from 2015 to 2019 at our hospital.