Training in occupational medicine
Recently, as I was reading Joseph LaDou’s book titled “Current occupational and environmental medicine”, I was struck by the similarities between the situation in the US described and the situation of occupational medicine practice in Romania.
In absence of laws to the contrary, industry continues to hire the most compliant and the most cost-effective health care providers and safety specialists. Occupational health nurses in the US (or the general practitioners with a short training in occupational medicine in Romania) are viewed by industry as professional peers of occupational physicians and preferred due the higher compliance and lower costs.
Short-courses designed for physicians with a general medicine practice (200 hours of instruction) are available in Romania, just as in the US (where they are conducted at the University of Cincinnati and the University of California, San Francisco).
Failure to diagnose occupational diseases and consequently eventually compensate workers is due partly to the lack of training of physicians in charge of workers’ health and partly due to interests of the industries. The books’ authors recognize this situation in the US, and it is also the case in Romania.
The shortage of formally trained occupational physicians is about to be corrected in Romania, about 60 young physicians were enrolled to a 4 years residency training in occupational medicine, which compared to about 100 physicians per year in the US represents a huge number.
But there is also a shortage of other professionals in Romania, also representing key players in the process of occupational health.
For instance there are very few industrial hygienists, which greatly impairs the control over workplace chemical and physical hazards. I have knowledge of only one training course in industrial hygiene in Romania, offered by the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Chemistry.
As an occupational physician confronted with a huge number of workplace chemicals, with possible effect on people’s health, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. The medical residency curriculum is deficient in specific training in toxicology and industrial hygiene, so that this course would make a perfect addition, but unfortunately it was discontinued for some reason this year.