A very important lesson I have learned in “miscommunication” from working here will be illustrated to you from a recent experience:
I was attempting to arrange a time when I could present my introduction to bulk asbestos identification with students, faculty, and laboratory technicians. I was told that with exams this week, the following week would be better. I marked down a time and date in my agenda, and noticed that I was the only one writing anything down, which made me a little nervous, but I did not think it would be appropriate to suggest the information to be written down in such a forward manner! The next morning, I received a phone call asking if I was going to be presenting the asbestos information!! I replied in a bit of a panic that no, it was scheduled for the following week and was not ready yet. I rushed over to the office, trying not to get frustrated, but having frustration written all over my face I am sure. I sat down while the scheduling was discussed amongst three Bangladeshi professors, in Bangla. I was trying to understand what they were saying, but was unable to follow. It was finally explained to me that, next week, all the students would be gone on a field trip somewhere far away, and although we had decided on next week, the responsibility seemed to lie in my court. We compromised for the following day.
New strategy: email a summary of items discussed at meetings as a record for yourself, but also for the other party to avoid as many ambiguities and confusion as possible. They do not have to necessarily be formal minutes, but just a quick recap of dates, deadlines and agreements in the form of an email could prove to be very useful.
Despite all this, the presentation was a success. Approximately 20 students, 5 professors and 3 lab technicians from the department of Occupational and Environmental health were present. The presentation consisted of:
• An introduction to asbestos including the properties of asbestos, the regulated fibres, common uses, health effects and a brief history of mining
• Mineralogy concepts including refractive indices
• Introduction to the components of a polarizing light microscope
• Step by step procedure of bulk asbestos identification
The presentation generated some lively discussion, mostly around what clues first trigger people to suspect some material may contain asbestos, then go on to collect a sample to be analyzed. Someone also asked how this relates to my project, which is interesting because of course, it doesn’t really relate to it anymore. I explained how my original idea for an exposure assessment study evolved into the health outcome study it is now, and so I would no longer be using identification in my study. Dr. Akhtar then mentioned that next year, he has plans for at least a couple of his students to take on projects that would utilize the polarizing microscope I brought, for asbestos identification.
Dr. Akhtar raised an interesting point I had never heard actually; I have always understood that while all asbestos is harmful, amphibole asbestos (crocidolite and amosite) is believed to be worse than serpentine (chrysotile), in that serpentine asbestos (the wavy, soft looking fibres) break down a little faster in the lungs than amphibole asbestos (the sharp needle-like fibres). However, Dr. Akhtar states serpentines to be more harmful than amphiboles because the curly nature of serpentine keeps fibres trapped in the lungs, while amphiboles are more easily brought up with natural clearing of the lungs.
The presentation was to be followed by a demonstration with the microscope I brought with me from Canada: one with the professors and one with the laboratory technicians. Prior to this I spent a few days setting up the microscope and making sure all the components were working as they should. The microscope I brought is the Meiji ML6120 polarizing light microscope for bulk asbestos identification. It has built in Koehler illumination which my friends at the McCrone Research Institute would not be pleased about, but otherwise, all other components are manually adjustable, and it is a reasonably priced piece of equipment that does the job. I decided the demonstrations would have to be with asbestos slides I prepared back in Canada using Cargille Meltmount™, because even though I brought Cargille™ dispersion oils with me, a proper fume hood will have to be constructed with a high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter before asbestos mounts can be prepared here. Slide mount demonstrations would be with fiberglass or some other man made fibre.
Training the professors went quite well. Although it was getting later in the day and everyone was losing energy pretty quickly due to this being Ramadan month (the month of fasting), everyone seemed very enthusiastic about getting their hands on the microscope and trying to identify the different types of asbestos. I had been warned before that as a younger woman, male professors might not cooperate and listen as readily as if I had been male, but I had all the professors’ undivided attention for about 3 hours and went through the steps of bulk asbestos identification with ease. They have a good handle of the concepts, and it seems to me they were enjoying themselves.
Training the laboratory technicians was not quite as successful. Main problem was, they don’t speak English. I went to Dr. Akhtar and asked how I should train them properly and he replied half jokingly, “you must train with little bit broken Bangla”. I tried to at least demonstrate the steps without much verbal communication, and they were all smiling and nodding, eager and willing to learn, but then when I asked them to do it on their own, they had no idea what to do. They were moving lenses around they weren’t supposed to be moving and well, it was a bit disastrous! Afterwards Dr. Akhtar asked how it went, and I gave him a look as if to say, it most certainly did not go well. He laughed and said, now that I have gone through it with them once, he will be there to explain things they don’t understand. I am not fully satisfied with that approach yet, but I will try to strengthen that a bit by making some more flow-charts with steps clearly laid out, and some colour photographs.
As for the fume hood situation, I have sent home photos of the fume hoods to get some advice from a ventilation expert, on whether or not we can place a HEPA filter somewhere in this existing structure, or if we will need to construct a little fume hood here and have one of my committee members coming out in November, to bring some HEPA supplies with them.