Mike Enzi: “imagine for a moment you have gone to the doctor to have a medical condition evaluated. Uncertain as to what your injury…”

“imagine for a moment you have gone to the doctor to have a medical condition evaluated. Uncertain as to what your injury may be, your doctor sends you to a specialist for a medical imaging examination to determine the extent of your injury and the proper course of treatment for it. Or, imagine, having heard the dreaded diagnosis of cancer, going to the same facility for radiation therapy. In either case, our sense of concern and anxiety about our medical condition will serve to focus our attention on ourselves, and not on the caregivers providing us with the treatment we need to recover, or in the case of cancer, to survive. But, what would you say if you knew that the individual helping to direct your diagnosis or the one providing your course of treatment is someone who has done nothing more to earn his credentials than spend a few weeks getting some on the job training. Imagine how you would feel and the level of trust you would have in a system that allowed such a thing to happen. Unfortunately, that's an all too common occurrence with the present state of our health care system. But, it is a problem that we can solve with the passage of legislation I am introducing today. The Consumer Assurance of Radiological Excellence, RadCARE, Act will ensure that there are coherent standards in place for those who plan and deliver radiation therapy treatments.”