Physician Practice

Flying the Lab

Medical Environment Update, September 1, 2019

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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.

As I write this, I am on an airplane. The airline attendant has just gone through her safety routine as usual. Also as usual, very few people have been paying attention; many are reading, napping, or talking. Sure, most people have probably heard this presentation several times before, but it makes me wonder: What would really happen if there was a problem with this flight? Would people know what to do? Would they know where to get their life jacket if they had to find it? What about the people in the exit rows—would they be able to operate those emergency doors? Those safety concerns remind me of my own issues in the lab setting.

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