Supporting Fields
No scientific organization can function if it is manned only by scientists. Supporting and assisting personnel are essential to the scientific team, and training is widely available for the nonscientist who wants to work in a scientific installation.
Atomic energy, like fire, is not dangerous when it is under the control of people who know how to use it. Special instruments and protective clothing are used by trained technicians who are responsible for radiation control.
A nurse is a professional medical assistant. She can be certified as a registered nurse in three years, or she can earn both an RN and a bachelor’s degree in four to five years. Especially if she enters the field of nuclear medicine or if she is associated with a physician or organization engaged in the clinical use of radiation and radioisotopes, she will need a background in physics in addition to her study of chemistry and the life sciences.
Many colleges and universities offer two-year programs that lead to a certificate qualifying a student as a laboratory aide. The laboratory aide, or assistant, performs assigned duties under close supervision. He does not conduct actual research, but he supplies the scientist with an extra pair of hands.
Scientific organizations also need administrators, librarians, translators, personnel directors, glassblowers, instrument repairmen, accountants, and a host of other skilled individuals to keep the team running smoothly. Such positions may be filled by persons with very limited scientific backgrounds. But the advantage—for employment and for advancement—is on the side of the secretary, or purchasing agent, or bookkeeper who has made an effort to become familiar with basic scientific principles and terminology. Nonscientists with scientific background are sufficiently rare to make them unusually valuable assets to scientific organizations.