The Lab Safety Gurus
Discover the secrets to enhancing laboratory safety without the hassle of navigating complex regulations and modifying established practices.
Tune in to the enlightening discussions led by the knowledgeable Dan the Lab Safety Man and infectious disease behaviorist Sean Kaufman. Together, they explore a wide range of lab safety subjects on a weekly basis.
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The Lab Safety Gurus
Enhancing Laboratory Safety: Cultivating Situational Awareness and Mindful Practices with Experts Dan Scungio and Sean Kaufman
Discover how to spot dangers in the lab before they escalate and master the art of keeping both eyes and mind wide open to safety. Your Lab Safety Gurus, Dan Scungio and Sean Kaufman, guide you through the maze of situational awareness, equipping you with the 'safety eyes' you need to prevent accidents and protect your team. As we navigate the laboratory landscape, we'll teach you to listen to the hums and haws that typically go unnoticed but could signal potential hazards. Learn to trust your gut when something doesn't add up and understand the subtle cues that could save lives.
This episode isn't just about watching your Bunsen burner; it's a call to action to look out for yourself and your colleagues in an environment where risks can lurk around every corner. We dissect the human factors that can compromise lab safety, from complacency to distraction, and provide strategies for intervening effectively when a colleague may be in harm's way. Take a journey with us into the heart of laboratory mindfulness and come away with the tools to ensure that when it comes to safety, you're not just following protocols—you're setting the standard. Join us, Dan and Sean, and upgrade your lab safety savvy to expert level.
Welcome to the Lab Safety Guru's Podcast. I'm Dan Scungio.
Speaker 2:And I'm Sean Cawthon, and together we're providing safety insights for those working in laboratory settings. Doing safetytogether.
Speaker 1:Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to our podcast. Today we're going to be talking about a subject that is near and dear to my heart, and I'm sure Sean's too Situational awareness. What on earth is situational awareness? I thought that was just a military term, but I've learned over the years that it's not. So some of you know I'm a superhero geek and I love to talk about superheroes and superpowers and things like that. One of the superpowers I always talk about in lab safety is having safety eyes or developing safety eyes. So I think we're all born with the ability to develop our safety eyes. I think it's a latent mutant ability for you superhero X-Men geeks out there that we all have, but we have to develop it, and that comes with becoming situationally aware. So, sean, I know that this came from the Air Force situational awareness. They came up with it first, but it's used in workplaces now all the time. How did it happen, that's?
Speaker 2:a good question. It actually started with fighter pilots, called the Uda Loop. It's one of the reasons why I think the US Air Force and the military aviation units are exceptional in what they do. They're all trained in this concept of Uda Loop. But, dan, I have to be honest with you. I've studied Uda Loop. I've trained for many years on the Uda Loop in containment, but now what I've done is I've kind of customized it for individuals who work in labs, and so I'm going to make it simple.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to go down the Uda Loop road. I'm going to bring up three things that we have to be aware of, and then I'll talk a little bit about how as the conversation unfolds. The first thing that we've got to be aware of, from a situational awareness aspect, is our environment, the lab environment. Is there anything that looks out of place? Is there anything that sounds out of place? Is there anything that smells out of place? Now, I'm not saying go smell any plates and I'm not saying I want you to sniff things in the lab, but I want you, when you first come into the lab, to actually pause and actively engage your senses. Now I think that's an environmental scan that can help you identify things that are out of place and maybe even things that potentially could go wrong, just by making an observation.
Speaker 2:The second thing that I think you need to be aware of is yourself. How are you doing? Are you stressed? Are you going through a tough time in life? Did you just lose a pet or a loved one? Is your marriage struggling? Are you fatigued? Are you tired?
Speaker 2:Many times we ask laboratory to do work that takes their full attention, that takes concentration and commitment and a lot of energy, and some days people show up. But just because you're a laboratory staff member doesn't mean that life stops around you. You're not a superhero. You have to look at yourself. And the last thing I think you need to be aware of are the people you're working with. A lot of people then think that safety happens in a bubble, but that's like asking you if you're a safe driver and not asking you about who's driving around you, not asking about what kind of car are you driving in, is it well maintained? What kind of weather are you driving in? Your safety is only as good as the environment you're working in and the people you're working around, and you have to be situationally aware of all three of those things Again the environment, yourself and the people you're working with. I don't know, dan, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 1:Yeah it definitely includes all of that. I always start with the environment as a safety officer because it's the thing I can detect first If I'm walking into a department and I'm trying to figure out what are the dangers, the scanning for the physical environment piece. It's easy, right. Some people are introspective, a little more introspective than others. They might not be able to think that they might be part of the problem if they're having their own issues and they certainly aren't aware of what other issues other people may cause.
Speaker 1:I was given a talk about error modes and skill-based errors that people make in the laboratory and the weird equation. The scary equation is the more familiar you are with the task, the less attention you pay to it, and so put that in the laboratory. That's not good. I'm really familiar with handling this formaldehyde every day, so I don't care if some splashes on me or if I'm inhaling the fumes, I don't really care. It's really quite the human aspect of this awareness. Actually, to me it's the scariest part. I can fix the physical environment part once I notice it, but the human part is a lot harder to deal with.
Speaker 2:Well, dan, you love superheroes, right, yeah, alright, so tell me what the spidey sense is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Spider-Man's spider sense, it's key, it's situational awareness for sure. Now he's lucky he can tell if somebody's behind him. You know a spider sense will go off, but we have to look around. And so if you want your spider sense to go off, you do have to look around and you do have to pay. But you also have to pay attention to your gut and that we all have our own version of the spider sense and we have to have a questioning attitude when something might not seem right. If you have that feeling, you have to go with it and you have to stop, think, take a look around and figure out why you've got that feeling, but don't just keep going when your spider sense goes off, because there's potential danger somewhere.
Speaker 2:Dan, this is where situational awareness and psychological safety intersect. This is it, this is that moment. Because how many times do we see things go wrong? I mean, I'm taking it to the worst extreme some serial killer of some sort, and somebody always says, well, we always knew something, just wasn't right. And that would be the worst thing to happen in a lab is if people said, yeah, you know, it smelled a little odd in there before the fire and you know it, just didn't. You know it, didn't report it and we should have. That's one of the worst things that can happen. Having a psychologically safe culture, you know, part of your safety culture is being psychologically safe. To bring up those spidey senses. Because let me ask you this Can Spider-Man, you think articulate and I know we're using a fictional character here you think he can add accurately articulate why he's having that sense? No, he can't, he doesn't know why it's going on.
Speaker 2:I don't think. I don't think people sometimes can. I think sometimes they just sent something is up and, and, and at that moment they've got to feel safe enough to bring that to leadership's attention, because that may be a critical function and being sensitive to failure and preventing something from happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's definitely where the rubber hits the road in your laboratory. Are you in an environment where you can react to your spider sense and you can take something to leadership? If you're transparent about it, nobody's in trouble. There's no consequences to that. Everybody feels free to do that. Everybody feels safe psychologically to do that. That is so key in a lab safety culture. And if you're the kind of leader, if you're a leader in your laboratory and you don't feel like that's the culture, you've got some work to do. And if you're working in a lab where the leadership is like that, it may be time to have a difficult conversation with the leadership about that, because I bet if your leader finds out that things aren't being said or brought to them about the things that are going on in the laboratory, they're not going to be too happy about that.
Speaker 2:No, that's right. So, dan, here, why don't we do this? You mentioned earlier if I see something environment I can fix it. So let's imagine that our listeners are saying to us right now what can I do if I see something? Let's start with environment. I'm going to give you the first one and then I'll take the second one and we'll both do the final one. What do you recommend? You walk into a lab. Let's hypothetically say that you're going to adapt this. I want to do an increased situational awareness exercise. I want to walk into a lab and for the first 30 seconds, I'm going to stand and I'm going to actively engage my senses. I'm going to look for things smell here. I'm just going to stand there and I'm just going to look. Now, dan, if I see something that's out of place in that lab, or something smells or something doesn't look right, what would you recommend somebody do?
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, it's all going to really depend on what it is you notice, right? So if I notice that the ceiling tile is out of place above the chemistry department, I'm going to go put in a work order. But if I notice that Joe Labtec over there is pouring some hydrochloric acid and he's not wearing any face protection, I must intervene. At that moment he's not being situationally aware and there's the potential danger to him is much more immediate.
Speaker 1:And so it does depend on what you see while you're using your safety eyes, while you're assessing the physical environment in the laboratory. It could be something, but something you know. Let's take another example. If I walk through the lab and I notice that there are wires hanging down from the keyboard of you know at the counter and they're in the path of where people are walking, you really need to fix that right away too, because that could create something disastrous quickly. It needs to be fixed right away. So it sort of depends on what you see.
Speaker 1:You know, I get a lot of guff as a safety officer when I'm doing a safety audit, because I'll walk through a lab with my clipboard and I'll write things down and I'll be done for the day and I'll get the report out to the manager and the staff will be like, well, he wrote all this stuff down but he didn't tell me anything. Yeah, because some of it I'm going to tell you the immediate danger stuff, but the other stuff that needs a work order and things like that, do you really? Am I really going to stop and tell all the staff that the cap to the I-1 station is broken? Nah, probably not. It's not as big a problem.
Speaker 2:No very good. And you mentioned the individual who is pouring hydrochloric acid without PPE. We're going to say that one to the end, because that is something that I want you and I to discuss. The second aspect of situational awareness, other than the environment, is about you when you're not doing well. Now, again, as Dan said, you've got to have a psychologically safe culture to report things that you're seeing with your senses. But you also have to have a psychologically safe environment for you to go up to your leader and say today's not a good day. I can do other things, dan, but I can't work today. And that means sometimes, dan, this is the hardest part. Sometimes people out there don't want to inconvenience the other staff they work with, meaning they know the workloads are high and if they're not having a good day, they know that the workloads of their staff are going to be increased and they don't want to do that. They want to push through. But what do you say to somebody who's kind of in that circumstance?
Speaker 1:So yeah, there's two sides to that right. How do you notice that somebody in your lab is not having a good day? What are the signs? Are you perceptive enough to notice, maybe, some changes in behavior, some changes in body language? Dan, can I interrupt? I need to interrupt you on this one.
Speaker 2:We're going to get to. When you see someone I'm asking you. Let's say, dan, you come in on a morning, you're supposed to be doing diagnostics or some type of research project and you're not doing. Well, dan, and you know that asking for this day off or at least some other type of an assignment is going to cause increases in workload of those you work with. How do you handle that?
Speaker 1:Well, I'd say it depends on your personality. Some people are going to just try to suck it up and continue on, even though that might not be the safest thing to do. There are those who are more I'll say less concerned about their coworkers and who are just going to speak up and say I got to go, this isn't working, this isn't going to work for me today. Yeah, I think it depends. I think it depends on your personality type. Some people are very concerned about hurting their coworkers, having the staff that are very conscientious and they're less likely to say something. So it also happens. That's what my initial thought was to turn it around and kind of give it to the boss about trying to figure out when they need to get somebody out of there, which is probably harder.
Speaker 2:Well, no, yeah, I mean yeah, no, I hear you on that.
Speaker 1:If you're the person who isn't doing well and needs to go, you also need to be cognizant of the potential dangers of you staying. You need to feel psychologically safe and you need to be situationally aware of what could happen if you do stay. You have to understand what the consequences are.
Speaker 2:So for the record, we're together on this. If someone is not doing well, even though it may mean any convenience for the amount of workload, safety is first meaning someone should be able to say I'm opting out today, I'm not able to do this. Your thoughts on?
Speaker 1:that.
Speaker 2:You're in agreement with that? Yeah, totally, 100%. Now, when they don't do that? So let's say, I look over, dan, and I see you doing work and you're crying because you've lost a pet or a loved one, or you're just not a good place. If we do make observations, like the gentleman who was pouring the acid you had mentioned earlier, or we do see that people aren't doing well, what are your thoughts? What should people do when they see that?
Speaker 1:You definitely have to intervene, and that intervention might mean escalating into leadership. If you don't feel like you're in a position where you can tell your coworker to step out, you might offer help. You might walk over to your coworker and ask them if you can complete the task. You can see that their mind is clearly not on it today. Those things happen when you it goes back to that book that we talked about in our last episode, crucial Accountability. When somebody's doing something, you have to remember that there are so many sources of influence on them. You may not know what it is. You can tell it's something bad, you can tell it's something not right, and you do have a responsibility for your safety, for their safety, for the safety in the lab, to make sure you stop them from doing something that's even more harmful. So, yeah, I think you have to step in. If you're not comfortable doing that, bring in your leadership. It's their job to do that. I have definitely, as a manager, asked people to step out of the department when they're just not right that day.
Speaker 2:No, very good, Dan. So again, just to wrap up, I'm giving you all a call to action Next time you step into the laboratory, take 30 seconds and make some observations and also make sure that you're taking a look at yourself and how you're doing that day. Are you hungry? Maybe take a break and get some food. Are you thirsty? Maybe take a break and have a cup of coffee. But I also want you to take a look at the people you're working with. Are they rushing, are they angry, are they frustrated, are they bored, are they fatigued? Safety means that you're taking a look at not only the environment you're working in. You're taking a look at yourself and you're taking a look at those you're working with. Stay safe and be situationally aware. We are the Lab Safety Gurus, dan Scungio and Sean Kaufman.
Speaker 1:Thank you for letting us do lab safety together.