Moving from Conventional to Learner-Based Biorisk Training

Dr Viji Vijayan
Assistant Dean
Duke-NUS Medical School

All workers who encounter biological hazards need to be trained in biosafety practices and usually this consists of online or face-to-face training with online material or lectures and multiple-choice questions as part of the assessment. The advantage is that the basic knowledge transfer can be achieved quickly and to more learners in a short time. The question however is whether this type of training is sufficient to deal with the myriads of differing situations the workers may face. Being safe is not just about understanding the theory but the use of practical methods to remain productive and safe, because success means remaining productive and safe at the same time.

In a recent study of research laboratory workers, I found that they developed resilience building methods to do just this. When faced with time sensitive and critical experiments, the workers used mental risk assessment to assess what safety and the experimental steps can be eliminated so that they can be quick and efficient. They also worked in teams, in fact some of the workers described long and tedious experiments as a carefully choreographed drama production with each player knowing what to do and all players watching out for each other? They learn these methods from their seniors and through their expertise and experience. And yet in biosafety training we teach them none of this.

Aviation has a concept called Crew Resource Management, which does not teach them the technical aspects of how to fly a plane but skills such as situational awareness, decision making, assertiveness, leadership, flexibility, adaptability and communication. These of course are in addition to the technical aspects of how to fly a plane. In biology too it is necessary to supplement traditional biosafety training with other active learning strategies to make workers resilient to deal with the unexpected.