Environmental Health and Safety Internships for Graduate Students

Several of the graduate students in the MSF 603: Occupational Safety class I teach at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) have been asking where to find information on occupational safety and health (OSH) or environmental health and safety (EHS) internships that select graduate students.

After snarkily responding that they can use the internet as well as I can, I realized that they would not have asked if the answer was easy to find. Most of the internship opportunities available are slated for undergraduate students, so there seem to be far fewer internships for graduate students. 

This dearth of graduate student internship opportunities may be for a few reasons:

• Companies seeking interns are hoping to snag an eager new undergraduate who will work for cheap (or free) rather than a well-trained graduate student, both of which are hoping for a transition into a full-time position.
• Companies seeking interns may assume that graduate students are already well-established professionals in their chosen field - which is not always the case.
• OSH and EHS graduate students can frequently be employed in work-study or graduate assistant positions within their university, making it difficult to commit to a summer internship without losing their employment.

As with most questions, the answer could be far simpler: companies seeking interns are not purposefully excluding graduate students. The internship opportunities for OSH and EHS usually require that the student must be a junior or senior year undergraduate. This means that the companies are likely looking for a student nearing graduation. Master's level graduate students certainly fit this requirement.

I did some quick internet searching of my favorite job-hunting sites ("safety intern" on Indeed, EHS Careers, ASSE Job Bank, CareerAdvantage at AIHA, and LinkedIn) to find the following 15 internship opportunities that appear to allow graduate-level applicants.

Health Promotion and Wellness Summer Intern @ NSA

The Health Promotion & Wellness Summer Intern Program is an intense and exciting 12-week internship open to select college undergraduates or master-level students majoring in the field of Health Promotion & Wellness, Health Education, or related fields. Interns will gain practical health promotion experience within the Office of Occupational Health Environmental and Safety Services (OHESS) of the National Security Agency (NSA).

View and apply

2016 Intern Technical � Environmental, Health & Safety @ Northrup Grumman

Northrop Grumman is seeking undergraduate or graduate students in public health, safety engineering or science, and environmental engineering or science for internship opportunities. These positions will be located at our Electronic Systems Sector in Baltimore, MD. The qualified candidates will become part of Northrop Grumman�s Environmental, Health, Safety and Fire Protection organization working with highly qualified professionals and interacting with employees. Working to ensure worker health & safety and ensuring compliance with these programs, working on environmental program areas to ensure and maintain compliance and protect the environment.

View and apply

Student Trainee (Engineering) � NASA Pathways Intern Employment Program

This Pathways Intern position is for an engineering student trainee in the Operational Safety Branch located in the Safety and Health Division of the Research and Engineering Directorate at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). The Branch provides safety oversight and consultation that results in safe operations and practices of all programs, projects, and workers at GRC. This reduces the probability of injury to personnel and/or the prevention of damage to property. 

View and apply

EHS (2016) Summer Intern � Environmental Health & Safety @ Spirit Aerospace

Work in the area of Environmental, heath, and safety. Gain experience in industrial hygiene, ergonomics or environmental engineering.

View and apply

Internship � Safety @ PC Construction

Work hand-in-hand with the safety engineers and project leadership to create a safe working environment for our employees. The safety intern will work alongside the safety engineer in training our employees in safety-related issues and techniques.

Qualified applicants should be enrolled in an Occupational Safety and Health degree program. Experience in the construction industry and/or prior internships in the safety field are preferred. OSHA 10-Hour, First-Aid, and CPR are preferred. Excellent communication skills and the ability to learn quickly and be forward thinking are essential. Spanish bilingual skills are a plus. This internship will begin summer 2016.

View and apply

Safety Intern @ Mayville Engineering Company

Under the supervision of the Sr. Regional HR Manager and HR & Safety Manager- - assists with the organization's safety, ergonomic, and machine safeguard programs to ensure safe, healthy, and accident-free work environment by performing the following duties.

View and apply

Internship � Statistics Intern @ 3M

3M is seeking a Statistics Intern for the 3M Oral Care Solutions Division of 3M Health Care. The target start date for this position is summer 2016. Ready to be a part of what's next? The statistics internship role is to acquire general knowledge and understanding quickly within 3M. The intern will work with 3M laboratories and manufacturing plants in product development, process understanding and improvement, test method development, or related areas. The successful candidate will work with an experienced 3M statistician to guide them through the use of appropriate tools and project methodologies. In addition, the intern will have an opportunity to work on ad-hoc efforts and start to build a network of resources.

The candidate should possess good oral and written communication skills along with strong computer skills. They should also have the ability to work on cross-functional teams. Demonstrated leadership ability, organizational skills, and statistical knowledge are all beneficial, along with an interest in hands-on application.

View and apply

Environmental Health & Safety Intern @ Alta Equipment Company

Alta Equipment Company is currently looking for a part-time intern (15-20 hours per week) in the Human Resources department as an Environmental, Health & Safety Intern. This is an entry level position, where the successful candidate will receive hands on experience in the day-to-day functionality of the corporate safety plan and processes. This internship will conclude in June of 2016, but has the potential to extend further. 

View and apply

Environmental Health & Safety Intern @ POET

The Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) Intern will be supporting an internal initiative to finalize completion of numerous internal safety and environmental systems/programs (PSM, LOTO) in an effort to meet all OSHA and/or EPA requirements. The key focus will be the construction/improvement of existing systems to develop best in class systems. Key requirements will be the ability to review and introduce governmental regulations into a comprehensive EH&S system. Important personal attributes will be attention to detail, strong organizational skills and the ability to work without immediate supervision.

View and apply

Summer 2016 Safety Internship @ Faith Technologies Electrical Contractor

This position assists in formulating, developing, and coordinating safety and loss control functions.

View and apply

Safety Intern for Summer 2016 @ Gerdau

Have completed at least two years of a college degree in one of the following fields: Industrial Safety, Environmental/Safety Engineer, or related field. Record of high academic achievement (Minimum GPA 3.0). Well-rounded applicants with leadership roles in student organizations or extra-curricular activities. Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without requiring current or future sponsorship for employment

View and apply

Intern � Environmental Health & Safety @ Aveda 

Aveda, America�s premier creator and marketer or plant-based haircare, skincare, make-up, PureFume� and lifestyle products seeks an Employee Health Services Intern to assist the Environmental Health Safety department with projects that enhance our safety culture and environmental mission.

View and apply

Internship � Site Solutions @ Environ

Ramboll Environ US Corporation (Ramboll Environ) is a leading provider of scientific and regulatory environmental consulting services to clients in both the private and public sectors. As such, Ramboll Environ has earned a reputation as a leader in the areas of environmental risk assessment and management, strategic compliance management and environmental liability.

An 8- to 12-week long internship program is scheduled for the summer of 2016 and will be located in either Irvine or Los Angeles, California.  Each participant will be assigned a mentor who will guide them through project assignments and responsibilities.

View and apply

Intern, Environmental Health and Safety @ Aviall

Aviall has an exciting position for an Environmental Health & Safety Intern at our Corporate Headquarters located in Dallas, TX.  The EHS Intern will support continuous improvement efforts in the areas of operational compliance to EHS policies and programs, root cause analysis and assessment of corrective actions and preventative actions.  Additionally this internship provides the opportunity to build relationships and develop business acumen through networking with other Aviall interns across the enterprise and interaction with various Aviall leaders. 

View and apply

Summer Intern OS&H @ Amec Foster Wheeler

Amec Foster Wheeler Construction is currently looking for summer interns to join our growing construction team for summer 2016.  The ideal candidates should be interested in the field construction side of the business and working towards a degree in occupational safety and health. The Summer Internship will require travel to our job site locations where you will work directly with our field teams in a �hands on� industrial construction environment.

View and apply

There are also several OSH/EHS internships available at companies like Chevron, Ford, Alcoa, Amazon, and Amgen. 

If you are a representative of a company looking for qualified EHS or OSH interns, consider opening up the internship (or modifying the language of your internship description) to graduate students. If there is an internship I missed in this list, let me know and I'll be happy to post it on this blog. 

The Making of the Healthcare Security and Safety Week Cartoon

At the request of some of my readership, this is a quick "making of" blog post regarding the Healthcare Security and Safety Week cartoon posted October 11, 2015 on this blog.

First I started with the idea: "Ooh, I want to make a cartoon of my team members to recognize their awesomeness during Healthcare Security and Safety Week." The idea happened for two reasons: 1) It's been a couple months since I last drew anything and 2) The cartoons usually make my team chuckle. Plus, a cartoon of yourself is better than a water bottle or other random IAHSS merchandise, right?

After I decided a few weeks in advance that I'd like to reserve a Saturday to work on the cartoon, I attempted to find time to make the cartoon over several weekends, but to no avail. It turns out that holding three jobs (full-time safety officer, part-time professor, and occasional consultant) makes it difficult to also have hobbies. 

That brings us to this past weekend, where I dutifully ignored the pile of laundry, dishes, and student assignments needing to be graded. Since I knew I would only have a few hours in which to complete the cartoon, I started my research by finding a page from Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist manga that fit the style I needed for the cartoon. This is lazy art, yes, but it's part of improving my art skills.

I happened upon this gem in the 10th volume of Fullmetal Alchemist, the first one I picked out of my bookcase, and the second page I flipped to. It was meant to be!

Scan of title page for Chapter 38: "Signal to Strike" from Fullmetal Alchemist.

This had the number of people I needed (sans Black Hayate, the dog), and most of the heights I needed. I quickly sketched out a pencil version to see if the design would work for the healthcare security and safety team I was trying to represent. 

Quick pencil sketch/draft of Healthcare Security and Safety Week cartoon based on Fullmetal Alchemist.

Obvious changes - the sandwich became a radio, one of the characters was shrunk down to a more accurate size, and clothing was modified to be what the team members usually wear. I kept the cape for our Director - it added a nice bit of flair and a conversation piece for the characters. The I started to ink out the characters and color with colored pencils. I'm still pretty low tech with my art, so manga pens and colored pencils are what I work with.

Fully inked and half-colored, with proposed captions above the characters.

I hate drawing hands and shoes. So most of them are hiding their hands (as per the Fullmetal Alchemist source material) and everyone has the same shoes. If they ask, I'm thinking my answer will be that we're all wearing safety shoes. This is also my first time drawing the Industrious Hygienist (me) as a regular person rather than the "hero" in blue and yellow coveralls like in my other manga. I'm the one with glasses, and I usually dress for work in pants and a button up shirt with cardigan sweater. The fully inked and colored version is below.

Fully inked and colored, captions removed so they could be done on the computer.

I sent the picture above to a fellow team member, requesting a review for accuracy. She (the one wearing orange) mentioned that the dude holding the radio is usually wearing an orange watch band rather than black as pictured. So after scanning in the picture, I made some minor edits in Paint (again, I'm pretty low tech with my art) and changed his watch band to be an orange color. I added the thought/talk bubbles and title using MS Publisher and saved the file as a PDF and JPG. The final, finished version is below. We'll see what they think of their cartoon selves. 

Happy Healthcare Security and Safety Week from the Industrious Hygienist!

Healthcare Security and Safety Week 2015

This week (October 11-15, 2015) is Healthcare Security and Safety Week. The International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS) established this recognition week to highlight the role of security and safety personnel in healthcare facilities.

Logo for Healthcare Security and Safety Week 2015 from IAHSS

Individuals serving as healthcare security and safety personnel often seem like they are working in the periphery of the healthcare environment - unless the security officers are called to respond to an incident or the safety officer arrives to assist with a chemical spill, you might not notice the valuable work they do to enhance the Environment of Care (EOC).

IAHSS has developed a few key messages associated with Healthcare Security and Safety Week, but I wanted to "flesh out" some ideas about how security and safety team members can be assets to a healthcare organization. Hospitals and other healthcare organizations are ostensibly in the business of helping people to improve or maintain their health. Safety and security team members frequently embrace the more practical aspects of service to patients and clinical staff.

With the IAHSS' theme of "Secure Environment/Safe Care," here are some ways that security and safety team members improve the Environment of Care (EOC) of a healthcare facility:

• watch for suspicious behavior from visitors and staff members
• train and educate staff about workplace violence prevention
• conduct emergency management exercises to allow for continued patient care in the event of a disaster or mass casualty event
• maintain a cache of food and water to sustain patients, visitors, and staff in an emergency or disaster situation
• ensure emergency eyewash stations are inspected frequently and function properly
• assess pressurization of certain areas in the hospital, in order to protect patients from airborne contaminants and lower the risk of healthcare-acquired infections (HAI)
• support monthly generator testing to ensure emergency power is available
• train and educate staff about reducing corridor clutter, so as to reduce risks to staff and patients in the event of an evacuation
• train and educate staff about allowable oxygen tank storage
• survey the facility for slip, trip, and fall hazards
• train and educate staff about waste minimization and sustainability initiatives
• conduct audits of hazardous waste streams (including regulated medical waste and sharps, pharmaceutical waste, chemical waste, etc.) to ensure waste is being handled in an appropriate manner
• remind staff to wash their hands frequently to prevent disease transmission
• conduct personal protective equipment (PPE) audits to ensure fellow staff members are wearing PPE when needed

Security and safety team members frequently remind staff members, contractors, and physicans to conduct their healthcare-related work in a way that reduces exposure of coworkers and patients to unnecessary hazards. 

The Industrious Hygienist is part of a pretty fantastic team of healthcare security and safety professionals in Arizona. In recognition of Healthcare Security and Safety Week, here's a shout out to the team (I'm the one with glasses):

Celebrate Healthcare Security and Safety Week with the team from your hospital!

Code Pink Hijinks

Healthcare institutions throughout the United States use a standardized color code system to communicate emergencies within the organization. Here are some examples of the color code system, which can differ from hospital to hospital depending on what state you are in.

Code Blue � medical emergency

Code Red � fire

Code Orange � hazardous material spill or incident

Code Pink � infant or child abduction

Code Yellow � bomb threat

Code Gray � combative person

Code Triage � internal or external disaster

There was a Code Pink incident this January in Arizona where a new father smuggled his baby out of the hospital by placing the baby in a shopping bag and wrapping the baby in blankets. He first tried to exit through a locked fire door, and then walked out of the main entrance of the hospital, making it back to his home with the baby. The baby was retrieved by the police and placed under protective custody in the department of child safety. Interestingly, some of the most thorough news coverage was from DailyMail UK.

Based on this incident, many hospitals in the Phoenix metro area staged their annual Code Pink drill this year with the scenario of a family member trying to remove a baby from the hospital using a shopping or tote bag, to test their staff response in the women�s and children�s units, as well as security response.

Hospitals frequently use infant abduction protection systems like Hugs� or Cuddlesor MyChild�. These infant tag systems are designed to integrate with a hospital�s existing security technology and raise an alarm if the tag is altered or if the infant moves outside of the approved pre-set perimeter.

HICSCenter.orghas developed an infant/child abduction scenario, including a planning guide, response guide, and incident command chart. The Hospital Incident Command System (HICS) differs slightly from �normal� ICS in that it is written for hospitals and includes components of continuing medical care in an emergency situation.

Some of my favorite movies and TV shows have had baby stealing as a component of the story: Willow (1988), Labyrinth (1986), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer � Season 3, Episode 6: Band Candy (1998). Not sure what that says about my movie tastes. 

In Season 3, Episode 6 (Band Candy) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1998), the adults of Sunnydale start behaving like teenagers after ingesting magically modified chocolate candy bars sold by the students to raise money for the marching band to get new uniforms. Yes, I was in marching band. I played the clarinet. Yes, I also sold candy and wrapping paper and a host of other things to support the band. The adults have been more or less incapacitated by demons and vampires so that the leading baddie (the Mayor of Sunnydale) can complete a tribute to a local demon named Laconis. Laconis lives in the sewers and eats babies. Buffy and her team go to the hospital to see if any babies are missing, and the staff and parents are acting like unconcerned, self-absorbed teenagers, so much so that they didn�t notice four babies being taken. The babies are rescued by Buffy after the demon is defeated and returned to the hospital.

The tribute of babies for the demon Laconis in "Band Candy" from Buffy S3 E6.

Lesson learned? Chocolate can be used for evil.

Labyrinth(1986) involves the Goblin King, Jareth, stealing the little brother of the main character, Sarah. Sarah is irritated that she�s been left home to babysit and that her little brother won�t stop crying. She wishes him away to a fantasy world ruled by Jareth and a cadre of muppet characters.  Jareth sings a song about it that�s pretty awesome. Sarah has 13 hours to solve the labyrinth before Jareth turns her brother into a goblin. Sarah ends up saving her brother at the last minute and returns to the real world.

The goblins from Labyrinth - image courtesy of muppet.wikia.com.

Lesson learned? Puppets are awesome. 

In Willow (1988), the main character Willow has become responsible for a Daikini baby found by his children by the riverside. A member of the diminutive Nelwyn people, Willow gives the baby to a disgraced Daikini warrior, Madmartigan, after Madmartigan convinces Willow that taking care of the baby would give him a reason to live and turn his life around. Not long after they part ways, Willow is dismayed to discover that Madmartigan�s child care skills were, in a word, awful. The baby, named Elora Danan, is whisked away from Madmartigan by a couple of brownies named Rool and Franjean. The brownies are working to save Elora Danan from being captured by an evil queen who wants to kill Elora to attain unmeasurable power. Willow and Madmartigan eventually team up with the brownies and lose/regain Elora Danan several times during the movie.

Lesson learned? Don�t leave an infant with unqualified caregivers. And Madmartigan is the greatest swordsman that ever lived.

To commemorate our Code Pink drill this year, I drew the following cartoon/manga of a possible Code Pink incident based on the events of Willow. 

Code Pink planning with Willow, Madmartigan, Rool, and Franjean. 

We're hard at work on our new Sock Puppet Safety videos and will share when they are completed. Thanks for your continued reading!

A close-up of the "We stole the baby!" moment since it is my favorite part of the manga:

Rool and Franjean steal Elora Danan from Madmartigan. 

Article on Weird Workplace Safety Videos

On July 2, 2015, The Atlantic published an interesting article entitled "In Praise of the Humble Workplace Safety Video" by Sophie Gilbert.

The full article can be accessed here. 

Ms. Gilbert stated in the article: "There are no statistics relating to whether safety videos actually decrease occurrences of injuries and fatalities in the workplace, but they definitely offer a healthy defense against one serious threat: lawsuits."

A 2006 study in the American Journal of Public Health entitled "Relative Effectiveness of Worker Safety and Health Training Methods" explained that video-based training is one of the least effective intervention methods to improve workers' knowledge of safety and health. Lectures and videos are passive methods that are commonly used in industry to present safety and health information, but were shown in this study to be the least engaging and least effective methods. More engaging methods, such as hands-on demonstrations and participatory discussions, were recommended.

NIOSH also discussed the effectiveness of safety training for workers in a blog post from January 29, 2010. The blog post explained: "In many cases, it was difficult or impossible to draw firm conclusions about the areas we examined due to the lack of quality research. There is a critical need for high quality, controlled studies of workplace health and safety training. That said, given that workplace education and training programs have a positive impact on health and safety behaviors, as we noted earlier in our discussion, and that training and education is a fundamental component of workplace safety and health protections, we recommend that workplaces continue to conduct education and training programs."

In 1999, NIOSH also released a document providing "A Model for Research on Training Effectiveness" that discusses what makes training effective, and explains the Training Intervention Effectiveness Research (TIER) model. The NIOSH document explains that:     

"[...] the most important goal of occupational safety and health training is the long-term reduction of injury and illness among workers. However, a longitudinal study does not meet the immediate evaluation needs of training interventions, and resources for such studies are not readily available. Therefore, occupational safety and health training research usually focuses on representative outcomes (e.g., workers� statements of behavioral intent) that are believed to accurately project unrealized impacts. Representative outcomes include direct results (such as improved attitudes toward risk reduction and hazard control) and intermediate variables (such as changes in work practices among workers who have received training)."

More on safety training and videos later. Happy 4th of July weekend!

We won! Thanks for voting in the #IHFundance Film Festival Competition!

Great news, loyal readers - 

Our Sock Puppet Safety video won THIRD PLACE in the IH Fundance Film Festival, held as part of the 2015 AIHce Conference. We're excited to use our winnings to make - you guessed it - more free safety training videos on YouTube featuring our adorable sock puppets!

We were excited to see the announcement from AIHA in the special edition of AIHA's E-ssential Connection:

Sock Puppet Safety won 3rd Place in the #IHFundance competition!

If you haven't already seen our awesome video, view it here: Cautionary Tales in Lab Safety

The first place award went to "Take Industrial Hygiene Home With You" by the industrial hygiene students at University of Michigan, and the second place award went to "Guardians of the Workers" by Jesse Zalk, the son of David Zalk, PhD, CIH. Congratulations to our fellow winners!

We'd also like to give our own Honorable Puppet Mention to the entry entitled "What Should I Be When I Grow Up?" by Kate Cole. 

Thanks again for voting and look for more videos in coming months featuring our team at Sock Puppet Safety (including a revelry-filled gag reel):

Sock Puppet Safety - Mad Labs Team: Piper Pangolin, Manny Macaw, Lemmy Lemur.

Upcoming topics include hazardous spill response, chemical inventories, eyewash testing, and other laboratory safety topics. We're working on other occupational safety scripts for general workplace safety as well - and are excited to collaborate with other Phoenix-area environmental health and safety specialists for later videos.

#IHFundance - Cautionary Tales in Lab Safety!

Greetings, loyal readers!

Please take 2 minutes out of your very busy day and check out "Cautionary Tales in Lab Safety," our first ever Sock Puppet Safety video on YouTube. This is a video submission for the IH Fundance Film Festival Contest at AIHce 2015 in Salt Lake City, UT.

The Industrious Hygienist will not be able to attend AIHce this year, but if you are going to the conference, please vote for my video! I promise to make more fun videos if we win. 

However, the Industrious Hygienist will be attending Safety 2015 in Dallas, TX in June. I hope to meet up with fellow safety and industrial hygiene nerds - I might even bring a puppet with me. If you're at Safety 2015, please also contribute to my roundtable at Session #625, "Safety Implications of Chemical Disinfectants in Healthcare." 

The roundtable is intended to discuss the following: "Healthcare associated infections represent a significant challenge to patient safety. To control this emerging threat, new chemicals and novel applications of existing chemicals are being marketed heavily to the healthcare industry. This roundtable will discuss challenges and attempt to build consensus on development of a proactive Health & Safety assessment model which balances staff and patient safety."

Wish us luck in the IH Fundance Film Festival! Vote for my puppets!

Leave us comments on YouTube if there are specific safety and industrial hygiene topics you'd like to see acted by our cadre of puppets.