10 Important Lab Safety Tips You Need for School and Career

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Whether you’re still a healthcare student or are already in the field as a Medical Assistant, Dental Assistant, or Pharmacy Technician, lab safety is critical. As a student, you learn all about proper sterilization techniques and how to handle important medical procedures and equipment. As a professional, you’ll actually perform those procedures for patients and healthcare professionals.

Are you up for the task?

Clinics and labs have the potential to be extremely hazardous if you aren’t careful. Missteps could harm you, your patients, staff, healthcare workers, and others. That’s why there are several safety tips you need to follow.

Here are 10 important lab safety tips you need whether you’re in school or on the job:

1.       Immediately report any accident or injury to your instructor or supervisor.

2.       Wear proper personal protection equipment such as lab coats, gloves, and goggles, whenever required. Avoid baggy clothes that could knock over beakers, tubes, tools, and equipment, or easily catch on fire.

3.       Tie back long hair for your safety and your patients’ safety and comfort. They don’t want your hair in their faces. You don’t want aerosols containing bacteria and viruses coming home in your hair.

4.       Choose the proper glove size and follow procedures for washing your hands before and after putting them on. Make sure there are no tears. Always wash your hands after removing gloves to ensure that no bacteria from the lab or office are transmitted to others.

5.       Never eat food or drink in the lab.

6.       Use lab refrigerators, freezers, ovens, and storage units only for their intended purposes within the lab or patient area. Do not use for your personal food and drink or storage.

7.       Do not apply cosmetics or contacts in the lab.

8.       Learn where the first aid kit, eye wash station, and fire extinguisher are, and how to use them in case of an emergency.

9.       Clean up and decontaminate your workspace before and after lessons and patients, and especially after any spills, contaminations, or other accidents.

10.   Learn and follow the lab rules for proper disposal of hazardous materials and sharp objects like needles, scalpels, and broken glass.

Are you and the people around you following these lab safety tips? At Charter College we make sure that you know what you need to do to stay safe in school and keep you and your patients safe once you’re on the job. Learn more about the kinds of careers you might enter with training in our healthcare programs.