Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 09:18:16 -0800
Reply-To: "Samuels, Joseph K PHD" <Joseph_K_PHD_Samuels**At_Symbol_Here**RL.GOV>
Sender: DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU>
From: "Samuels, Joseph K PHD" <Joseph_K_PHD_Samuels**At_Symbol_Here**RL.GOV>
Subject: Re: Chemical Safety Training Programs
Comments: To: "chemcon**At_Symbol_Here**JUNO.COM"

You can make the response to such a request impossible or develop a plan. By offering classes at introductory, intermediate and advanced Chemical Training, you can use a lesson plan to define what will be covered and then test the worker or student against the material. If the person fails they have to repeat the course until they pass. You can also define who must pass which courses in order to work where and/or independently in a lab situation. If by observation and/or accidents or near misses in the person demonstrates that they do not meet the criteria for their level of working within the lab, they must be retrained.....and all of this can be in your Chemical Hygiene Program directly or by reference as the training program. My two cents............ JOSEPH SAMUELS Hanford Environmental Health Foundation 3090 George Washington Way, H1-51 Richland, WA 99352-1658 Phone: 509-373-3144 Fax: 509-372-0465 mailto:joseph_k_phd_samuels**At_Symbol_Here**rl.gov -----Original Message----- From: Jay Young [mailto:chemcon**At_Symbol_Here**JUNO.COM] Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 8:19 AM To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety Training Programs Ralph, How smart is your safety committee chairman anyway. It should be obvious that the number of contact hours required to achieve competence in practicing chemical safety would depend upon the extent of knowledge the learner has to start with. Examples: Does he/she know the common incompatible reactive pairs such as strong acid+base, powerful oxidizing+reducing agents, and so on? Can he/she give examples of such pairs? Does he/she know where to find this information, e.g., in Bretherick or has he/she never heard of Bretherick? Can he/she describe (briefly) the content of the OSHA lab standard? Do they know what an MSDS is? Can the read an MSDS and make sense out of what is printed? Can they identify errors in an MSDS? and so on and so on. In other words, your chairman asked you a question that is impossible to answer except to say that it depends upon the person being trained. Jay On Fri, 6 Feb 2004 06:33:53 -0500 Ralph Stuart writes: > In a meeting yesterday, the chair of our Chemistry Department safety > committee asked me what constituted "adequate training" for a > Chemistry Department in the regulatory sense. My answer as that, since > the Chemical Hygiene Standard is performance based standard, there is > no clear answer to this question (he asked it in terms of contact > hours); the proof of an adequate training program is in a laboratory's > "safety performance" as assessed on site. > > For good reasons, this is not a particularly satisfactory answer. In > trying to think of a better one, I remembered that several times > over > the last 10 years various people and organizations have collected > data from around the U.S. about what safety training various > academic > programs provide to their students. I wonder if anyone knows where > the results of this might be published? (Yes, I think I contributed > a > paper about this to a CHAS meeting several years ago; no, the paper > was never written up.) > > If I can't find any published information about this, I'll probably be > back to the list next week with a request for information. > > Thanks for any help. > > - Ralph > -- > > Ralph Stuart, CIH > Environmental Safety Manager > University of Vermont > Environmental Safety Facility > 667 Spear St. > Burlington, VT 05405 > > rstuart**At_Symbol_Here**uvm.edu > fax: (802)656-5407 > > Owner: > SAFETY list (general discussion of environmental health and safety) > LAB-XL list (performance oriented environmental regulation of > laboratories) > >

Previous post   |  Top of Page   |   Next post



The content of this page reflects the personal opinion(s) of the author(s) only, not the American Chemical Society, ILPI, Safety Emporium, or any other party. Use of any information on this page is at the reader's own risk. Unauthorized reproduction of these materials is prohibited. Send questions/comments about the archive to secretary@dchas.org.
The maintenance and hosting of the DCHAS-L archive is provided through the generous support of Safety Emporium.