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MEMORANDUM
January 26, 2001
TO: Ezbon Jen
LoAnn Campbell
FROM: Robert Robin
SUBJECT: Baker Remodel/Anatomy Laboratories
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As per our discussions, attached please find a single sheet outlining the need and historical patterns associated with Anatomy 1 laboratories. In addition to the need for additional laboratory space for both teaching and storage, significant safety/hazardous materials issues also exist and may be of primary importance when considering the urgency and the need for the establishment of new laboratories and support space in the South Wing of Baker Hall. I have made an effort to condense all the major issues into one page, however, space limitations result in the exclusion of many important elements. Should you find that additional information is valuable please feel free to contact me.
cc: Susan Baldi
Chris Christopher
Susan Wilson
History/present status - The master plan for Baker Hall called for the construction of a permanent, safe and secure dissection laboratory to be added to the west end of Baker Hall in the late 1960's. The facility was never constructed. Presently anatomy 1 is taught in an inadequate and unsafe setting in a standard classroom/laboratory and anatomy 58 is taught in a made over lecture room which even lacks sinks .
Student Need/Laboratory Use -Human anatomy is a required course for all students who plan careers in: physical education, sports medicine, nursing, physical therapy, dental hygiene, physician assistant and several others. Anatomy
sections now close early during registration and computer records show that an additional 50-60 students attempt to add after closure. The need for additional sections will increase with normal growth and additional programming by the Health Sciences Department. In addition, the anatomy laboratory is frequently used by courses, such as anatomy 58, biology 10,13, zoology and athletic training. Local physicians and dentists often use the human materials for staff training and preparation for new surgical techniques.
In the fall of 1998 the expansion to four sections of anatomy 1 I semester impacted the laboratory and represents one more section than can properly be taught in this facility. Additional sections are not possible.
Because anatomy students cannot remove materials from the laboratory for home study, students must spend extra, unscheduled hours in the laboratory, doing dissections and studying cadaver and prosected human materials. Most successful students spend an average of six additional hours in the laboratory weekly. The result is that each student is in the classroom for twelve hrs/week. During the weeks that proceed laboratory exams, the student laboratory use increases.
This pattern is common in colleges and universities and to that end anatomy laboratories are often kept open and staffed well into the night, including weekends, often as late as midnight.
Presently the anatomy laboratory is in scheduled session thirty-six hours weekly, leaving precious little time for open lab. use, and very limited access to students for additional study/work. As a result, student behavior now reflects the frustrations of being denied enough study time. We are now faced with problems requiring disciplinary actions associated with theft of laboratory materials (models, microscopes, microscope slides, bones etc.), and fights for access to dissections ~which are required and graded) and the limited human materials used for examinations. Several confrontations leaning to the edge of violence have occurred in the laboratory .Additionally, the impacted conditions result in damage to, and excessive wear on microscopes, models, charts, furniture and other equipment, to the present point of not having adequate
materials to maintain a quality program.
Use Comparison: 1970 vs 2000 -Shown below are patterns of scheduled laboratory/student use by just anatomy I students over a thirty-year period.
1970- Two sections of human anatomy 11yr. (3 units -no human dissections)
3 lab & 2 lect.hrs/wk = 170 room hrs./wk = 4,080 student use hrs./yr .
2000- Nine sections of human anatomy 11yr. (5 units -human dissections required)
6 lab & 3 lect. hrs/wk = 1530 room hrs/wk = 36,720 student use hrs./yr. A use increase of 800 percent.
Safety/Human Health Problems -The fact that the laboratory setting is unsafe begs the question of student/instructor safety .Cadavers are preserved in phenol and formaldehyde. Both of these chemicals are listed as potential cancer causing
.agents. As the primary instructor (R. Rubin), I have been exposed to there potential carcinogens for over thirty years.
In 1989 the laboratory was monitored by Pacific IHI and Air Quality Research, Inc. Using PF-20 personal formaldehyde monitors worn by faculty and Staff it was determined that the concentrations to which we were exposed exceeded the title 8
Cal OSHA ceiling. and in one case were more than double the maximal exposure level established by OSHA.
My frequent requests for laboratory safety solutions did not result in any action, and only after a student threatened legal action in 1994 that there was any institutional response. The response was the purchase of two dissection tables. While these tables are useful, they are far from state of the art and because of student demand/numbers, the laboratory continues to use cadavers on non-vented tables. The use of a fume hood is impossible because the fume hood vent has been filled with water since 1968. The laboratory lacks safe storage for prosected materials that also contain hazardous chemicals, and does not have any safe area for chemical use or handling.
In addition, students/instructors use potentially dangerous tools (scalpels, autopsy saws, bone cutters) while working in ventilation and electrical outlets require the use of portable lights, fans, and extension cords. There is a risk of falling over the extension cords that dangle from the cadaver tables and lights, and run across the floor. Because of limited space and
viewing areas, students frequently stand on the tabletops to observe dissections. There are no sink areas where dissection materials can be handled without the potential of hazardous chemical release into standard drains, in violation of federal and state law.
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