Dogs Ease Work Stress and Great Lab Continuing Education Does Too

By Beaker, Your Lab Training Partner

I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Beaker, APHL’s unofficial mascot for its laboratory training program.  You may not know me personally, but I am your lab training partner!  I know that you are always looking for good continuing education programs to help you and your staff keep up to speed on what is happening in laboratory science… and believe me, a lot is happening!  APHL has put together a variety of webinars this fall that ease the stress of where to find the continuing education that everyone in your lab needs.  Who exactly are these webinars for? Those of you working in clinical, academic, reference, veterinary, research, public health, environmental laboratories – any labs that do any type of analysis on humans, animals or environmental specimens. If that’s you, keep reading!

Did you know that APHL training webinars are available to your entire staff at one reasonable, low price?  The registration fee includes one-line access to the webinar on the broadcast date, access to the webinar for all those who want to listen in at your site AND six months’ access for the rest of your staff.  And, yes, that does include continuing education units (CEUs) as well.  What a bargain!  If I were you, I’d be happier than if my friends and had ended up in a room full of fire hydrants!

And did you know that you can register your site for the archived webinar for six months after the live training?  If the date doesn’t work for you, don’t worry!

Coming up this September is a webinar on the new OSHA Chemical Standard that outlines what EVERY lab needs to know about the new standard and the new safety data sheets which you may already be seeing in your laboratories.  OSHA mandates that all employers conduct training by December of this year to get their employees up to speed, and this webinar will satisfy that requirement.  The program, on September 19 at 1:00 ET, will be presented by Eric Clark, the Safety Officer for Los Angeles County—can’t get a better safety expert than that!

Speaking of safety, APHL also has two other webinars in September on safety issues. The first covering laboratory-acquired infections, will be presented by Karen Byers, the Biosafety Officer for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston on September 17.  Risk Assessment for Clinical Microbiology Laboratories  also is scheduled for September. Mary DeMartino from the State Hygienic Laboratory at The University of Iowa will be the speaker.  With all of these safety webinars, your laboratory a safer place to work. But I know safety is only one of your stressors and must-haves in professional education.

Since regulatory issues are always on your mind, APHL is partnering with the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science (ASCLS) to present a webinar, CLIA Summer Update on Hot Topics 2013.  Judy Yost of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will be just back from the summer Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee (CLIAC) meeting and will discuss (among other hot topics) the latest breaking news on competency assessments, quality systems and a pilot project for education of CLIA-waived laboratories.

That’s just the beginning of APHL’s training line-up!

I’ll leave you with one last bit (or kibble) of information:  Since I am your best friend, I know that working in a laboratory can be stressful.  Fortunately, CDC has resources that can help you deal with stress.  Check them out today! And did you know that owning a dog or having one at work with you (I know that’s impossible for you!) alleviates stress?  And as reluctant as I am to admit it, cats can help too (but probably not as much as dogs)!  At Harvard Medical School, they even have a resident pooch at their library to help students, staff and faculty relieve stress.  Good stuff!

Have a GRRRReat August and September—we will talk again soon!  By the way, if you need to ask me any questions, I am available by email.  I’ll have to get one of my humans to translate, but feel free to contact me!