the professional side of me

so most of you probably wonder 'what the hell does she do for a living?'. My classmates and I compared notes one day about the public perception of what an Industrial Hygienist is. We have had people wonder if we:

a) clean toilets
b) do something with teeth
c) tell people to wash their hands after handling food
d) try to keep businesses clean

The answer would be e) none of the above. [well, c might be correct, if we worked at a food processing plant] We did wonder who came up with the name. And where could be nail his feet to the floor.

There isn't even a really good mutually agreed upon definition within industrial hygienists. I usually answer that it's "work place safety" or "making sure my employees don't kill themselves on the job". Depending on the sense of humor of the person I'm addressing.

What am I doing in grad school? I'm getting a Master's of Public Health (MPH). Of course, this then brings up the image of somehow working the with public health department and inspecting restaurants. sigh ... so ...

If you are possessed of an urge to read more about the actual scope of Public Health, and whatever the hell it is an IH does, you can check out the Professional Me, and my equivalently professional interests at my other blog: gopherpublichealth.blogspot.com
. If you have no such urge ... well, don't bother.

More damn gophers. Yeah, I know, but it seemed the easiest way to make sure no one else had used it. And it's much shorter than Mountaineerpublichealth or elizabethtobiaspersonalinterestsinvariousaspects.
ofpublichealthandindustrialhygiene.blogspot.com