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Doctor Invents 'Zero Gravity' Radiation Suit
DrFrasierCrane writes "You think you feel weighed down when your dentist lays that lead apron on you to take X-rays: how about the doctors who deal with radiation treatments and have to wear those aprons all day long? A Dallas, Texas, doctor has created a 'zero gravity' radiation suit for just that problem. From the article: 'Physicians are supposed to wear a lead apron during those procedures. It is back-breakingly heavy and doesn't cover the body completely. The zero gravity suit eliminates the weight and the exposed openings.'"
This will be good for doing angios, etc, where they just stand around and watch - which is good, 'cause they just hit the fluoro pedal, and the radiation stream is constant. For stuff like orthopaedics (my specialty), we usually just use spot images, and have to move around a lot, twist the patients legs, reduce fractures, etc, This suit is way too bulky, and wont be useful
Not a bad idea - I can see it getting used.
"zero G" - now that just makes me laugh
..........FULL STOP.
You should have RTFA. This guy invented "hang it on a hook". No, really - that's the trick. You build a nice, heavy lead shield curtain and then you hang it from the ceiling to hold the weight. I guess if you don't have a handy ceiling mount (maybe you need a portable X-ray?) you could invent a wheeled gantry to carry it around with you. Anti-gravity would come under the category of "marketing hyperbole".
Canceling out gravity doesn't require inertial dampening. The latter would only be used if the suit was rapidly accelerated, which I would guess to be unlikely in an indoor medical setting.