Admin webmdave Posted February 21, 2009 Admin Share Posted February 21, 2009 Note from Dr. about Tc-99m Yesterday a student came up to me and explained that she had been injected with a radioactive isotope for a medical scan. She then asked if she was still radioactive. Expecting the isotope to be mostly decayed or simply too small to notice, I wanted to calm her fears with a Geiger counter check. The results surprised me, and she allowed me to take a video (her face is not shown for privacy) shown below. You can listen carefully to the ‘clicks’, which rapidly increase as I approach her. It turns out that her doctor gave her a note (right) explaining that the isotope was Technetium-99m - commonly used for medical scans (more information about Tc-99m can be found from the Brookhaven National Laboratories). Tc-99m has a half-life of 6 hours (she had the scan 4 hours earlier), so she still had a significant amount present in her body. Leave it to a science teacher to find this interesting. My Radioactive Student from Brian Bartel on Vimeo. View the full article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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