
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
Embodying Safety: Transformative Resolutions for a Safer Laboratory Environment
Kickstart your year by aligning your beliefs with your behaviors in the lab. Discover the power of genuine commitment to safety as we, Dan Scungio and Sean Kaufman, guide you through practical safety resolutions that go beyond mere words. We promise you'll learn how to effectively embody safety in your daily practices by replacing outdated habits with sustainable, healthier ones. Together, we'll explore the hierarchy of controls, waste management, and the often-overlooked aspect of psychological safety, inspiring a culture of continuous improvement in the lab environment.
For those new to the field or feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of change, we emphasize the importance of incremental steps. Our approach ensures that lab safety improvements are both achievable and manageable, creating a safe working environment that evolves with you. Join us, the Lab Safety Gurus, as we express our heartfelt gratitude for your support and set the tone for a year dedicated to enhancing lab safety. Get ready to embrace practical tips and personal insights that will keep safety at the forefront of your laboratory work this year and beyond.
Welcome to the Lab Safety Gurus Podcast. I'm Dan Scungio.
Speaker 2:And I'm Sean Coffman, and together we're providing safety insights for those working in laboratory settings, doing safety together. Happy New Year, Dan how are you doing?
Speaker 1:Happy New Year, sean. I am, I'll say, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to start the new year. I'm a little chilly and cold weather is not my favorite, but I'll push that aside. Get ready for the warmer weather coming and the start of a new year. In everything At home, at work, church and all the places lots of things going on. It's pretty exciting how about you?
Speaker 2:No, very good. I'm looking out of a window here in atlanta, georgia, in snow and and, as you can imagine, because I know it's not much better in virginia maybe a little better, but it is absolute chaos here in georgia when snows. So, uh, it's a beautiful blanket of snow. Right now we're getting hit by a storm, so I'm just happy to be warm. I too, dan, do not like cold weather so yeah, it's just my background.
Speaker 1:I grew up in buffalo. I had enough of it then.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, oh, my god, I can't even imagine so. Um. So, dan, you know, being that it's a new year, uh, let's talk about new year's resolutions. But here's I want to. I want to start start off by doing something, though I think I mentioned earlier to you that I do a radio show, kind of a little local radio show, and it's actually called Believe and Behave.
Speaker 2:Now, it's about religion and Christianity and it really challenges people to not just say they are believers but to walk in line with the behaviors. And so, dan, I want to start off by challenging folks this year to create a New Year's resolution that actually goes in line with believing in safety. We have a lot of people out there, even a lot of leaders out there, that say that they believe in safety, that they think safety is important, that safety is absolutely a critical function, that safety is a priority. But then we're looking at behaviors and, oh well, you know, are they really? Do they really value safety? You know? Do you know what I'm talking about, dan? Have you, have you run into any of that?
Speaker 1:I run into that all the time and I you know, different folks have different levels of what they consider to be safety, uh, oversight or management, and uh, I'm I'm surprised, uh quite often about, um, the lack of safety oversight. I think there are a lot of reasons for it and I I'd really like to hear your point of view on how you can get. When I go into the lab and talk to Gene about the schedule, I have to notice the safety issues too and talk about those. That's wow. That's putting a lot of pressure on me as a lab manager, sean. I don't know if I can make a resolution and do better, but how can I? How can I do that? There are ways to do it, but I'd like to hear your take.
Speaker 2:No, it's going to be a challenge, dan. I mean, there's no doubt One of the things that we have to do when making a resolution is we really do have to. You do, too, that. The work that we have in laboratories, regardless of what it is, whether it be clinical labs or diagnostic labs, animal labs, research labs, medical labs the work demands, you know, substantial focus and organization, and so the question really is is well, how do we identify what a resolution is and how can we make a resolution? That's going to be something that makes a difference, and so that's important. But I think, first and foremost, we have to give people permission and freedom to identify things in safety that they love themselves. Like you know, dan, for me you know me, I'm a little biased I like psychological safety. You know that's a component of safety that I love. What about you, dan? What's your favorite, you know topic or favorite thing in safety?
Speaker 1:One of the things I like to think about a lot and try to discuss and educate on is the hierarchy of controls, just how that works in all areas and what a great setup that was. And I wish people you know could sort of think about that more while they're going about their day in the lab. For sure, it's just a topic I really like. And waste management I love waste management. I don't know why?
Speaker 2:no, I think you know it's. All of those uh issues are are important. I think when we talk about a resolution, uh, what, what's the reason, dan, you make a resolution like why do you make a new year's resolution?
Speaker 1:yeah, you make a resolution because you want to make a change. The desire is there. You may not know how to do it but you know you want to do it and maybe part of your, your thinking process is that you're going to come up with a plan for how to do it in the new year.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you want.
Speaker 1:You want to make a change. You want to do something better for yourself, or better for where you work, or better for the department, whatever it is. You want to make a positive change.
Speaker 2:No very good. And maybe even you know, I always like to say when folks say their resolutions are something like I want to stop doing something. As a behaviorist, I always red flags go up in my mind because typically, if you're doing something, you have a need to do it, and by simply saying I'm going to stop doing it, you don't address the need that's driving that original behavior. And so I always like to say that a resolution really shouldn't be stopping something. It actually should be replacing one behavior for another and and you see what I'm saying so not necessarily stopping a habit, but but replacing a habit for a healthier. I'll give you, I'll give you an example, dan, I'll give you. I was. I got a harvard education for san diego state degree. My, my, the reason why I'm even in behaviorism is dr richard epstein from Harvard University.
Speaker 2:Bf Skinner's protege was my mentor during graduate school and really, really brought in a sense of behavior and a sense of understanding behavior during that time. And he said listen, he said this to the class when we were young, young individuals. We were, all you know, 22 years old in graduate school. He said listen, by the time you reach my age, 30 years from now, if each and every one of you identifies a habit in your life that you do every single day and you actually decide at the end of the year to stop that habit and replace it with a different one, just for a year you don't have to give it up for the rest of your life, but just for the year you will live a much healthier life.
Speaker 2:And, dan, so many years ago I used to drink a lot of Red Bull. I did, I did, and it got to the end of the year and I was evaluating behaviors that I do kind of habitually, because that's what gets us in trouble. What gets us in trouble are the behaviors that we do every single day, and we then begin to underestimate the risk that those low risk behaviors add up to. So, for example, we've we really don't look at that as a substantial risk, because usually, more often than not, it's not. But if we're doing this hundreds or thousands of times during a year, there's going to be a small percentage of time that we need to be paying attention to detail, otherwise we may run into an exposure.
Speaker 2:But back to my point. I replaced Red Bull with a less risky, more healthy substitute and I haven't drank Red Bull since. And so, as we look at New Year's resolutions for safety and laboratories, what is it that you do every day? What habit do you do that's every day? That can be considered a potential risk, and how can we minimize that risk with a new behavior? What are your?
Speaker 1:thoughts, dan, and there are so many, so many areas you could go into. It could be. It could be the, the clothing you wear to work. Um, I just these are comfortable shoes and and that's what I want to wear, and I love crocs. I'm just kidding, I don't, but maybe somebody does, or they're joggers and their feet only feel good in these certain kinds of sneakers that really aren't lab appropriate. Or maybe it's in the realm of donning and doffing PPE or not buttoning your lab coat, or it's always hot in the lab so you roll up your sleeves on your lab coat, something like that. Don't wear face protection when you need it. Uh, don't think about it. All of that there's.
Speaker 2:So I mean, oh, I mean, I mean, dan, you, you, you just brought up several resolutions. So let's say you're out there right now and you're like you know what I'm gonna buy a? I'm just gonna go out and get a good pair of lab shoes and I'm going to dedicate myself to wearing these lab shoes all year long. These are going to be my lab shoes. Or maybe you invest in a good pair of just glasses you know we wear sunglasses outside all the time, but maybe just go and invest in a good pair of glasses that you're going to wear in the lab all year long. You're going to like, commit yourself to that, you know. Or you're going to commit yourself to a lab coat and making sure that your lab coat is is. I mean, everything that you've just mentioned is an example of things that people can do to improve their overall safety, just by paying attention to those things and saying you know, I'm going to commit myself to that.
Speaker 2:I'm going to pick one thing I'm going to make sure that every single time I leave that laboratory, I wash my hands for 30 seconds. Yeah, like, not not 10 seconds. I'm not going to hurry and I'm not also going to just run out, because sometimes I know people run out. They didn't. They went into the lab. I swear I didn't touch anything. I'm going to leave anyway. I didn't. You know, I didn't touch anything.
Speaker 2:I washed my hand but like you know, what if you, you, you commit yourself to saying, okay, that you know, that's it, I am. I'm this one thing I'm going to focus on all year long. And if you think, dan, after 20 years, that's 20 habits that have been fully developed over a 20-year lab career.
Speaker 1:This falls, don. This is so cool. This falls right in line with two things that I've been teaching for years. The first one is focus on the process, not the goal. You'll get further if today, you just focus on the process. What's one thing I can do today to get me toward that goal, and that's what these habit formations are? I can buy the right shoes and go wear and start to wear them. I can practice wearing my lab coat correctly and donning and doffing correctly.
Speaker 1:The other thing I talked about earlier was like you know that manager who walks in the lab and doesn't notice Joan with her lab coat not buttoned because he's so busy and I always try to give lab managers and lab leaders a break because of that but those people too can make a resolution and say you know what I'm going to this week?
Speaker 1:Just this week I'm going to, before I say anything to anybody, when I walk in the lab, I'm going to do a quick check and just look at people's footwear, just for a week. Just look at footwear and get better at that and get better at noticing it, even when I'm walking through, trying to talk about something else like the schedule. Next week I'm going to look at PPE use. I'm going to watch how people put on their gloves, how they use them, how their lab coats are. Are they buttoned? Are they wearing them properly? Are they wearing them? And when you do that, when you focus on the process, do one thing at a time throughout that year or over the years, you will have what I call safety eyes and you'll be able to see those things without consciously having to notice them each time or paying a lot of time, spending a lot of time looking for them.
Speaker 2:It'll become much more natural, and that's a resolution that leaders can make in the laboratory 100% and, dan, you know I've been doing what Dr Epstein taught me for the last 27 years. There have been years where I haven't had bacon and, trust me, those were hard years. Years where I gave up alcohol completely I didn't even touch it. The years where I've given up sugar and I will tell you now that, at 51 years old, you know where I'm. 27 years down the road. I will tell you right now that I am very disciplined and I have the ability to control my habits, and it increases a level of situational awareness within me as well. And I think what's important for us as individuals, and as you've said, is that we don't get better overnight and we certainly aren't going to get safer overnight. But what we can do is we can choose to focus on one thing, and you will be so surprised how, when you stay focused and disciplined on one thing, it has an impact on so many other things around you.
Speaker 2:Dan, can I give one recommendation to leaders out there? Yeah, please, I would hope maybe you could have a resolution on vulnerability, and let me explain what I mean by that. I want leaders to admit the mistakes they've made in the labs. I want them to talk to their staff about the times where they've made mistakes, the issues that they may have caused, that they may have caused and the reason why I say that, dan, is it's one of the best predictors for psychological safety is actually having the leaders that everybody's afraid of be vulnerable and admit that they too, at one time or another in their career, maybe even recently, make mistakes, and that they are open and they're not afraid to admit that they're not perfect, and that is not only a very neat and humbling resolution, but it's a resolution that triggers trust among the staff that work in the laboratory environment. Dan, I'm going to give you the last word, but any thoughts that you have on resolutions.
Speaker 1:I agree with that 100%, sean. A resolution to not only show your vulnerability, but maybe talk about it. I have definitely made mistakes in the lab safety field and I want to learn from them and I have learned from them, and I think that's what we should all be doing. We're all on a safety journey. Like you said, safety doesn't happen overnight and you might feel like it's really daunting. You walk into the new lab maybe you're new to lab safety and your job is to help make it better and you might feel really overwhelmed by that. But you don't have to. You just take it one step at a time, one bite at a time, and you change one thing at a time. One bite at a time and you change one thing at a time. That's the resolution that's going to take you to where you want to go.
Speaker 2:Well said, Well said. Happy New Year Dan.
Speaker 1:Happy New Year, sean, and.
Speaker 2:Happy New Year to all the listeners out there. We are the Lab Safety Gurus Dan Scungio and Sean Kaufman.
Speaker 1:Thank you for letting us do lab safety together.