Friday, May 25, 2012

ERC Tour 2012 - We are home


It was a great week. I enjoyed the entire week, visiting the sites, and learning with the students and other faculty. This is an opportunity for students to learn about occupational safety and health outside of the classroom. This tour gives students the chance to see workers in their work environment, allows them to see the hazards and exposures, and gives them the opportunity asses a real life condition.

The interdisciplinary aspect of the tour allows students to learn from each other, create an understanding that we need to rely on multiple disciplines to ensure workers are safe.

I am glad we had the opportunity to meet with our colleagues from Cincinnati and Italy. Thanks for a great week.

Below are some of the fun pictures.














7 comments:

Unknown said...

Another great tour Mitch and Jack! Thank you NIOSH for making these trips possible.

I've been in this ERC throughout my MS and PhD programs. Along with gaining perspectives from other health and safety related disciplines for occupational hazards, I gained information that will help me for jobs I've applied to in industry. This trip was especially beneficial because I was able to get perspectives from the tour guides on fall protection controls. As a mechanical designer these perspectives not only give me a glimpse of safety concerns but give me perspectives of comfort and usability that could impact a workers experience with the PPE. It was also great to see familiar faces, meet new people, and pass on knowledge to the younger students.

Thanks again,

Vivek Pinto, PhD

Anonymous said...

Thanks all for the great opportunity to see real-world perspectives on occupational H&S.

I found it quite beneficial for the opportunity to meet other students and professionals and to develop an understanding of their different views on a given situation - IH, Occ med, etc. Too often we keep our blinders on and only assess a situation from the perspective that we know -- how great to broaden the view, to develop new ways of addressing a situation and new resources to solve problems.

Also fantastic to see how H&S is implemented by various industries on a day-to-day basis. I found this to be a very grounding aspect to situations that previously we may have only addressed academically.

I really enjoyed meeting everyone, sharing our views, and broadening our perspectives!

Chris Meeker
NYU student - MS Ergonomics/Biomechanics

Unknown said...

Back in Brescia! What a great opportunity we had! During this tour we saw a lot of interesting places and found out how is really important to share knowledge between different occupational professionists.

Elena Toninelli M.D.
Università degli Studi di Brescia
Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia
Scuola di Specializzazione in Medicina del Lavoro

Anonymous said...

A great experience, Thank you Mitch for organizing a great first trip for me. It is very helpful as a physician to interact with my colleges of different fields and better understand their perspectives. As a new comer to the NY/NJ area and east coast in general, this was very helpful in understanding the different industries in this part of the country and be able to see them up close.

Norman Quesada M.D.
Mount Sinai

Unknown said...

This trip was incredible and exhilarating! It reconfirmed my desire to practice occupational medicine.

The access to some of the sites would have been impossible without the Mitch and the ERC coordination! Further many questions would have remained unanswered and a mystery without the excellent staff at each location.

I truly did not appreciate the importance of the interdisciplinary aspect of the trip until several days in. I was simply looking with curiousity at a work site - noting people moving here and there, doing this and that. But behind me was an ergonomy student whispering about this and that problem. Then taking a second look, indeed the problems were present. In fact, they were so obvious that I have no clue how I didn't notice them to begin with! I am often rely on textbook medical definitions to help diagnosis a patient ailment, but often forget to put those patients into a context - and in this case a workplace!

I could not pick a favorite site as all of them were different and interesting. If I would have guessed prior to the trip, I would have thought that the accident rate would have been highest at the quarry given their use of tools and explosives. But I did not stop to consider, the hazardous conditions of the boat and the unpredictable element of weather thrown in for the fisherman nor did I consider the sheer multitude of chemicals at the paper mill!

It was also eye-opening to interact with the other students doing such a variety of occupation-related studies - some of which I didn't know existed! I feel confident that the workforce of the US will be in good hands for the future.

I look forward to continuing my studies at the summer school in Brescia, Italy and seeing everyone again next spring if not sooner!

Thanks,
Sadie H. Sanchez, MD
Preventive Medicine Resident
Mount Sinai School of Medicine

P.S. For the insiders, remember my motto is "fashion over comfort."

Unknown said...

P.p.s. As you can see from my joyous expression (that's me in the green shirt landing from my jump!), the granite bowling was fantastic experience.

Aresio Souza said...

It pleasure to be part of this ERC-Tour 2012!

Thanks to NIOSH for supporting this amazing program that helps safety students to expand their horizons with actual site-to-site experience.

Thank to all faculties, and a special thanks to Dr. Rosen for all effort in making things run smooth during the whole trip.