Cool Science

...happened in the science world this week. But why write about that when we can take this to another level. Yes, I can only be referring to lab coats. They look cool on tv shows, so they must be good for you. I have to put in the politically and technically correct issue first: when used properly, lab coats can provide a major increase in laboratory safety. But I don't like them because they are too easy to mis-use, to give false impressions of safety, and to even increase risk when mis-used.

There's the rub. If you get something on your lab coat, you MUST take it off right away. If you spill some chemicals on your sleeve and leave it on all day because you 'feel' safer, you're actually succeeding in giving yourself a long term exposure to whatever is soaked onto the sleeve.

Snap, crackle, pop. For reasons I don't understand, some lab coats are made with a variety of angst-inducing buttons. It should only fasten with snaps so that the coat can be ripped off at a second's notice. If your lapel is on fire, do you want to be fiddling with buttons?

It's a wash. And then you have to wash it regularly, and the ideal is if this is done on the premises by your employer in a washer/dryer set aside for this purpose only. If you don't wash it, you get even longer term exposure to the chemicals you spill on it. I am always deeply worried about people who have been wearing the same lab coat for years.

False security syndrome Wearing a lab coat seems to make people feel a little TOO much security and hubris in the lab and more willing to take risks, let things spill on the coat, etc. It's the NFL padding effect - the development of amazing new pads is being blamed for the extraordinary rise in hard hits and concussions.

Alarming. This is a controversial one, but here goes. Accident detection is more difficult with a lab coat. That's not controversial - it's a second layer of clothing so that when you spill on a lab coat, you may not even know it. But here is a conundrum - if you spill on a layer of clothing that does contact the skin directly you will detect it right away and be able to respond immediately, but you risk the consequences of skin exposure. If you spill on a lab coat, you may not know it for a long time so that you avoid the direct skin contact, but you do give yourself the long term exposure.

Klutzy. Look, maybe this is only me, but the lab coats I've dealt with back in the day had baggy sleeves right around the wrist. It was so easy to knock things over, dip it into things, get it too close to the flame, etc... I hated those sleeves - maybe they've fixed that with tapered sleeves now.

Well, that's my rant about lab coats. I know that it's not popular to complain about a safety garment, especially one that makes you look really, really good looking and smart. But there it is.