Dr. John Singley Attends Cairo Conference
June 01, 2001
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Dr. John Singley attended an international conference on the Applications of Human Performance in Health and Disability held in Cairo, Egypt in the spring of 2001. |
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| For more information, visit the conference web site. |
Here are some pictures Dr. Singley took of the local environment.
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St. Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Moses, built around 550AD. |
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Sir Lawrence of Singley in front of the Step Pyramid at the Saqqara Ruins Complex, the oldest Egyptian pyramid. |
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The Great Pyramid of Cheops with the Great Sphinx in the foreground. |
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The Egyptian Museum was built in 1900 and exhibits over 120,000 objects. |
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A view of the Great Pyramid from Dr. Singley's hotel room window. |
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Doing Things the Right Way - The First Time
Doing things the right way, the first time is a message that should be delivered to every medical professional, engineer, safety professional, industrial hygienist and environmentalist. Many engineers design workstations or equipment without seriously looking at the consequences to workers' safety and health. Examples of such practices include, but are not limited to the use of the wrong instruments to monitor air quality, poor industrial practices, the development of temporary measures that become permanent and bad work rules that are promulgated to protect the safety and health of workers and the public.
Many instances are discussed of poor performance as noted in 30 plus years experience in the safety and industrial hygiene field. The incidents noted include examples from both the medical field and the industrial area. The actions described in this paper are of the type that produce accidents and illnesses to both workers and the general public and endanger property and human life. Small errors in design, judgment or human performance are examples of actions that have led to situations such as Three Mile Island and Bhopal. The potential for human tragedies lies behind many of our daily decisions. It is for this reason that Safety and Health professionals need to counsel with engineers, medical professionals and other responsible authorities.
The initial approach to Industrial Hygiene hazard control was a trial and error system. This system was known in the military as the fly fix fly syndrome. Since this technique did not lend itself to good industrial hygiene practices and health or safety practices, the need for the right way, the first time, has been underscored. Further, the need for the right way, the first time has been made necessary by the complexity of industrial projects, increases in product liability litigation and medical malpractice suits plus the awareness that upstream reviews lead to better and safer designs. The Systems Safety Society (SSS) has defined safety as freedom from harm and has further stated that Safety, Industrial Hygiene and Health, all of which are defined by the World Health Organization as Health, are achieved by doing things right, the first time, every time. Further, the SSS suggests the use of sound engineering and management techniques to make any operation safe throughout its life cycle.
Most traditional Safety and Industrial Hygiene programs are compliance oriented. They are based on codes or standards, which are by and large political documents. These documents are subject to compromise and generally represent minimal acceptable levels of performance. Moreover, compliance oriented programs are reactive, rather than proactive. The standards are written in blood, i.e., a reactions to an incident. The technique of doing things right, the first time, every time is proactive in nature, involves systematic hazard analysis, is generally a team effort and represents operational effectiveness, as well as a saving of time and money. The right way, the first time is in keeping with the traditional Industrial Hygienist's goals of identifying, analyzing and controlling hazards.