Physician Practice

Fighting fire with fire

Medical Environment Update, November 1, 2018

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Medical Environment Update.

Editor’s note: In this guest column, Dan Scungio, MT(ASCP), SLS, laboratory safety officer for Sentara Healthcare, a multihospital system in Virginia, and otherwise known as “Dan, the Lab Safety Man,” discusses the important issues that affect your job every day.

In 1939, the first issue of Marvel Comics introduced the original Human Torch, an android named Jim Hammond who would burst into flames when exposed to oxygen. Fourteen years before that, President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the first National Fire Prevention Week to commemorate the Chicago fire of 1871, which killed more than 300 people. In that span of 68 years, from 1871 to 1939, more than 17,000 people died in fires in the United States. Because of fire awareness campaigns over the years, the number of home and workplace deaths have greatly decreased. The risk of fire in your lab goes down as well when fire safety awareness increases. 

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Medical Environment Update.

Most Popular