Award-Winning Safety Training Videos Showcase Inclusivity in the Lab

Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU’s) Center on Health Disparities and safety and risk management department in Richmond teamed up to develop a series of six lab safety training videos with supplemental funding to their NIGMS-funded Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) program. The videos cover topics such as safety culture, biosafety, chemical safety, and emergency response, but what sets them apart is how they showcase diversity and inclusion in the lab. The first video in the safety training series describes the importance of maintaining positive safety culture, which includes people’s perceptions and attitudes toward safety. This video, along with the other five, is on our NIGMS laboratory safety training and guidelines webpage. Lights, Camera, Action! When Rita Shiang, Ph.D., a faculty member in the VCU Center on Health Disparities and the department of human and molecular genetics, learned about the funding opportunity from NIGMS to create lab safety videos demonstrating inclusivity in the lab, she jumped into action. The first step: getting Larry Mendoza on board as a subject matter expert. Mendoza is the laboratory safety officer at VCU in the safety and risk management department. He oversees all aspects of lab safety, including lab inspections and, importantly, lab safety training. “I knew that if Larry was on board, we had the potential to make a great set of videos,” Dr. Shiang says. Luckily, Mendoza didn’t nee...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Being a Scientist Cool Videos Training Source Type: blogs