Laboratory safety could be substantially improved if the students receive a n education in laboratory safety beginning when they are undergraduates and continuing through graduate school. This is an education issue, not simply a training issue. This requires tha t students learn to identify and recognize chemical, biological, and physic al hazards, they learn how to carry out assessments of their laboratory ope rations, they learn how to control, manage, and minimize exposures to hazar ds, and they learn how to react in emergencies. To build a positive safety culture requires a long-term commitment to educating students on a frequen t basis (each time they go into the lab) about laboratory safety from the f aculty and teaching staff of an educational institution. Albert Schweitzer once said something like "Example is not the main thing i nfluencing people. It is the only thing." The faculty and staff must learn to become leaders in laboratory safety for this to happen. This requires a significant change in thinking about laboratory safety - educating in labo ratory safety must become an integral part of the chemistry educational pro cess from the very beginning and throughout the entire curriculum. Robert H. Hill, Jr., Ph.D Program Manager, Atlanta Analytical Services Battelle Memorial Institute Century Plaza 1, 2987 Clairmont Road, Suite 450 Atlanta, Georgia 30329 Tel 404-460-1453 Fax 404-460-1441 Cell 678-362-3040 Email hillr**At_Symbol_Here**battelle.org -----Original Message----- From: DCHAS-L Discussion List [mailto:DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Li st Moderator Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 3:45 PM To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] : Legal aspects of CalOSHA & UCLA/Change Focus From: "Carl Zipfel"Date: May 8, 2009 3:42:01 PM EDT (CA) Subject: RE: [DCHAS-L] : Legal aspects of CalOSHA & UCLA/Change Focus > How adequate are the safety training programs for both students and employees in academic institutions? > Are academic institutions providing appropriate training and safe working environments for students and employees to work in academic laboratories? >Are academic institutions providing adequate safety training to students who will enter the private sector work force? Actually, a couple of very good questions. 1 - Universities can't train for many varied issues that a new employee will potentially faced at industrial establishments. This is a necessity done best at that work place. What institutions can do is to teach students how safety requirements are important for their own protection. This does require that they develop and enforce proper protective processes at their laboratories, and teach why these are important. 2 - The best way to minimize accidents, in any environment, is to engage in appropriate and proper "risk assessment". Proper procedures and hazard minimization will always flow form an appropriate, honest, risk assessment, and hazard minimization program. 3 - Would it not be wonderful if every chemistry, and engineering, student, was taught basic fault-tree, and what-if, analysis. Carl Zipfel csp EHS Management Systems LLC www.ehsmanagementsystems.com
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