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Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Nature Comment Pregnancy in Lab
Date: Monday, February 14, 2022 at 4:27:17 PM
Author: Amber Wise <amber.wise**At_Symbol_Here**GMAIL.COM> 		Next by Date:
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Nature Comment Pregnancy in Lab
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2022 16:36:53 -0600
Author: Meg Osterby

From: Monona Rossol <0000030664c37427-dmarc-request**At_Symbol_Here**LISTS.PRINCETON.EDU>
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Nature Comment Pregnancy in Lab
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2022 21:36:10 +0000
Reply-To: Monona Rossol <actsnyc**At_Symbol_Here**cs.com>
Message-ID: 1193508575.1019343.1644874570022**At_Symbol_Here**mail.yahoo.com
In-Reply-To



without knowing, how could I make sure the epileptic student was safe? If I knew, would it have been wrong to not let that student handle concentrated strong acids? The disability services office said it would be. So my question is, how can it be wrong to want to keep that student safe?
Somebody needs to bring some common sense to the ADA rules.  This is just stupid and people need to call them out.

Monona


-----Original Message-----
From: Meg Osterby <megosterby**At_Symbol_Here**GMAIL.COM>
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU
Sent: Mon, Feb 14, 2022 2:39 pm
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Nature Comment Pregnancy in Lab

When I was still teaching chemistry at the technical college, I had a student one semester who was epileptic and neither she nor the disability services office thought it important to inform her lab instructor of the possibility of a seizure by this student during lab.  She was subject to occasional grand mal seizures and I was appalled that the powers that be thought that the lab instructor didn't  need to know that possibility existed.

My imagination could come up with scenarios of what such a seizure occuring during a dangerous lab procedure would be like.  How much damage that could occur to the student herself or to nearby students if the student has a grand mal seizure during a lab period?  It seemed really dangerous to me, to not know of the possibility of the student having a seizure when handling concentrated acid or setting up glassware for an experiment, or simply falling off a lab stool? 

But apparently the legalities of students with a handicap or medical condition are that the information need not be given to me legally.  But without knowing it, how could I keep her safe? If I had a color blind student, for example, I needed to know so I can have the student's partner to be the one monitoring color changes in an experiment, since the color blind student wouldn't be able to determine what color was seen.  And disability services told me I couldn't even do this.

My point being that without knowing about such a benign "disability" I would not be able to help that student be successful in those labs involving seeing color.  There's no danger to anyone, except to the grade of the student who cannot see color the same way as the other students do.  And I was told it was illegal to ask if a student could see color.

So obviously, it's illegal to ask if anyone happens to be epileptic, but without knowing it and without being told how to manage a seizure if that student had one, how would I have been able to keep her safe? I could assign the normal vision partner the task of doing the titration and seeing the end point, but without knowing, how could I make sure the epileptic student was safe? If I knew, would it have been wrong to not let that student handle concentrated strong acids? The disability services office said it would be. So my question is, how can it be wrong to want to keep that student safe?

I never got an answer to this that I agreed with in terms of keeping my chemistry lab students safe.  So how can it be right to not assure my student's safety? 

Meg Osterby

On Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 12:40 PM <neal**At_Symbol_Here**chemical-safety.com> wrote:
Is this a reasonable topic for a symposium at a national meeting and/or regional meeting?  Always lots of interest in this topic.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stay healthy and prosper

NEAL LANGERMAN, Ph.D.
ADVANCED CHEMICAL SAFETY, Inc. (Retired)
5340 Caminito Cachorro
SAN DIEGO CA 92105
+1 (619) 990-4908
www.chemical-safety.com

-----Original Message-----
From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU> On Behalf Of Ralph Stuart
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 10:08 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Nature Comment Pregnancy in Lab

> The end result, as you said, is a culture that isn't providing the best support to workers, but one that does provide institutions with the predictability that they need. I'm sure there are ways to meet both sets of needs, but beyond communications strategies designed to combat the perception that the institution doesn't care, it's not obvious to me what those are.
> 
I agree that it is a significant challenge to balance the institutional and individual needs, particularly on issues with little technical risk information and high emotional stakes, such as pregnancy. That is why I was heartened to see that the Nature comment "conclude(s) that community is critical to improve experiences". I think that this need to support community building is part of the reason for the interest in safety culture in general and in higher education in particular.

<start promotional announcement here>
People who are interested in discussing opportunities and challenges of the the community building approach may be interested in one or both of the peer led workshops the Division is organizing this month and next:

Building a Safety Culture in Your Lab
A proactive laboratory safety culture is the key to a safer laboratory. This workshop will explore what this means and provide concrete tools you can use to support a safety culture in your lab. Register here for this workshop to be held Saturday, February 26.

Empowering Researchers to Strengthen Safety Culture Also known as the Lab Safety Teams workshop, taught by chemistry graduate students with experience with implementing and maintaining laboratory safety programs at their home institution. This workshop will next be offered Sunday, March 20, 2022; you can register for it here.

Both of these workshops are peer led and designed to include lots of interactive discussion between the workshop leaders and the attendees.

More information and registration links can be found at http://dchas.org/2022/02/01/workshops2022/
</promotional announcement here>

- Ralph


Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
ralph**At_Symbol_Here**rstuartcih.org

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