The branch of quality assurance is now taking a new direction towards total quality management (TQM). Being of industrial origin, the concepts and terminologies in TQM are alien to medical and paramedical professionals. However, the impetus it has already made in other areas of healthy sciences makes medical physicists left out when diagnostic radiology does not encompass TQM . The purpose of the paper is introduce the terms used in TQM and some aspects of its application to diagnostic radiology.

X-rays were put into medical and other uses soon after its discovery in 1895. This was followed by the use of other types of ionising radiations. The benefits and damages resulting from use of radiations were soon evident. The early recommendations for controlling radiation exposures came in 1915. The international Commission on Radiological Protection gave its first recommendations in 1934 and these were revised in 1955, 1959, 1977 and 1991. Effectively, the average annual whole body dose limit to workers has been reduced from 500 mSv to 20 mSv and for public from 15 mSv to 1 mSv during this period.