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Candidates applying for Part 2 of the American Board of Health Physics (ABHP) exam are required to submit a written report demonstrating that they have produced professional-level work in health physics. To meet this requirement, your report must address each of the following criteria:

1. It must be a report on a health physics topic, such as those included in the CHP exam.
2. The report must demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of health physics.
3. The report also must demonstrate either:
   1. Your ability to independently develop acceptable judgements in health physics and to apply appropriate decision making based on those judgements.
   2. Your ability to independently develop an acceptable health physics program and to apply the appropriate knowledge and decision making to properly enact that program.
   3. Your ability to design a health physics project and collect and analyze its relevant data (including appropriate statistical analyses) and determine if the project's goal or hypothesis is met.
4. The report, lastly, must be performed and written solely or principally by you (the candidate).

In short, an acceptable professional report will be able to answer each of the following questions:

• What health physics-related problem are you trying to solve?
• What health physics knowledge is required to solve it?
• What is the goal or hypothesis of this work?
• What information or data was collected to help solve that problem?
• Did you either:
  • Use that information to develop an appropriate set of actions to solve that problem?
  • Use that information to develop a new health physics program?
  • Perform a comprehensive study to collect those data, analyze those data, and develop conclusions based on those data?
• Are you the primary or sole author of this work in its entirety?
  • NOTE: if you are not the sole author of this work, then you will be required to obtain your coauthors' signatures that endorse your role as a primary author.

Given these conditions, here are examples of report topics that would not meet the ABHP requirement for professional-level heath physics work:

• A Radiation Survey, Contamination, or Radiological Sample Analysis record (it doesn't demonstrate your ability to analyze data and develop appropriate conclusions or actions based on that analysis).
• A radiation work permit created using a set of existing work instructions or template (it doesn't demonstrate your ability to develop appropriate health physics judgement and apply reasonable decisions based on that judgment).
• A license application or ALARA review designed based on a regulatory guide (it doesn't demonstrate your ability to develop a professional program in health physics and apply your health physics knowledge to enact that program).
• A radiation worker training program that restates definitions and basic safety requirements (it doesn't demonstrate in-depth knowledge of health physics).
• The creation of a database or program to record health physics-related information (it doesn't demonstrate your ability to evaluate information and develop appropriate health physics actions based on it).
• The creation of a program to calculate health physics-related data (it doesn't demonstrate your ability to analyze the resulting data and develop appropriate conclusions based on that analysis).
• A thesis or dissertation that is a topic chosen by your advisor, is a continuation of your advisor's work, and the experiment methodology already is in place or is primarily based on pre-existing procedures (you are not the primary author of this work, and this work doesn't demonstrate your ability to design a health physics project).

If you have any questions on the validity of a report that you would like to submit, please contact the ABHP executive director.