Occupational Medicine and Health Affairs Interest

Department of Health Care Sciences, Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Wayne State University, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Thomas J. Birk
Chair
Department of Health Care Sciences
Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
Wayne State University, USA
E-mail: ae7647@wayne.edu

Received date: February 16, 2013; Accepted date: March 20, 2013; Published date: March 22, 2013

Citation: Birk TJ (2013) Occupational Medicine and Health Affairs Interest. Occup Med Health Aff 1:107. doi: 10.4172/2329-6879.1000107

Copyright: © 2013 Birk TJ. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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My interest in occupational medicine and related health affairs stems from both professional and personal perspectives. Professionally, the capacity to physically perform work in an effective and efficient manner has always been curious to me. Whether a person is a first responder, carpenter or someone performing filing, the ability to physically accomplish the task in a given amount of time, without being overly fatigued, is important not only to the worker, but the employer and the health system. Physical tasks that result in abnormal physiological responses could eventually contribute to pathologic tendencies. Pathology, which could in time result in impairments and functional limitations, may limit worker productivity and mean more health care. Studying occupational medicine and applying pertinent findings could facilitate greater worker productivity and more prudent use of health care. More recently, worker apparel has become a consideration in not only worker safety at a plant, but also worker productivity. Apparel needs to protect the worker but not increase physical fatigue, or productivity could be limited. This study consideration has been another example of an important occupational medicine and health affairs issue.

From a personal perspective, occupational medicine and health affairs has been part of my family heritage. My father, uncles and grandfather were all engaged for all of their working lives, in physical tasks. These physical tasks required both high degrees of skill but also work capacity in order to be effective and efficient. As I was growing up my observations of these men gave me a great appreciation for the intricacies of occupational medicine.