Training future chemists for a successful career as a laboratory scientist is challenging. Most laboratory “safety” training is taught in conjunction with basic lab courses and covers a multitude of topics. This generally suffices for the class as the “experiment” is well known and chosen for “safety” while illustrating various laboratory techniques. Although graduate courses in accident prevention are now more common, a students' mentor is usually responsible for both safety and safety training in their lab. Again, the training is usually experiment specific (and therein lies the problem). The nature of experimental chemistry is that the outcome is not known. Although we theoretically try to determine the outcome (products) of the new experiment, the results are by no means certain. To help keep down the number of accidents the “safety” training should be designed to stress the concepts and applications of risk management. This talk is based upon information gained during many conversations and informal surveys during thirty plus years of teaching “lab safety”, consulting and implementing accident reduction programs in industry. The recurrent theme of the information gathered is that the analysis of an experiment (both in chemical and physical terms) is the most important in accident reduction. This analysis should be subject to the principles of “risk management”. Several schemes for implementing a “risk management” approach to accident reduction will be discussed as well as the results of their use. Examples of student lab reports will be discussed.

Using risk management techniques to improve situational awareness and accident reduction

256th National Meeting (2018)

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