I was at the pub last night with a two friends of mine from undergraduate years gone by; we all did a bachelor of science, and while I’ve been doing a PhD in biology, they both started dentistry degrees. While the prospect of looking into someone’s mouth and picking at teeth for a living does not appeal to me, the financial security of dentistry is pretty attractive to a PhD student facing a career as an overqualified dole bludger.
While I listened to my friends talk about probing gum lines, drilling teeth and making moulds for toothless old men, I began to appreciate the degree of manual dexterity needed for a profession such as dentistry. In fact, until only recently, one of the entrance tests for graduate dentistry involved bending a wire into a predetermined shape using pliers. This might seem like a strange benchmark to set for prospective dentists, but if given the choice, I would definitely prefer to visit a dentist who could control a pair of pliers over one who couldn’t.
It got me thinking about the types of hand-eye coordination I need for my research. Fine dissection skills, pipetting into small tubes, handling dangerous chemicals without spilling them. Sure, there are a thousand and one (often annoying) OH&S precautions for preventing accidents in the lab, but the main thing stopping you from dropping that large vial of carcinogenic liquid you’re carrying is your own dexterity and care.
Of course, not everyone is blessed with the fine motor skills necessary to be a dentist or a surgeon. There are probably few who would object to excluding the coordination-challenged from holding sharp pointy things near people’s faces or performing organ transplants. People’s welfare and lives are in the hands of these health professionals.
By the same logic, perhaps there should be a “no klutzes allowed” screening process before scientists be allowed to work in a laboratory. I’m not saying that I’ve never had an accident in the lab, everyone makes mistakes, but there is potentially nothing worse than working in the lab with someone pathologically clumsy.
Observing severe lab klutzes at work can be like watching the proverbial bull in a china shop. Lab partners of serious klutzes may become adept at stopping accidents before they occur, using simple phrases such as “hey, that’s okay, I can carry that huge bottle of sulphuric acid. By the way, how did your dent exam go?”
While working with a lab klutz can also be a serious risk to one’s mental health, it may also be a “character building” experience. Repeating experiments after someone dropped a week’s worth of your samples can only make you a stronger person, right?
Do you work in the lab with an extreme klutz? Was your chemistry lab partner in undergrad a complete liability? Alternatively, for those who suspect they might be the culprit of more than their fair share of lab accidents, you can meet like-minded people on Facebook.
