by Alberto Caban-Martinez

Hello, OHS Section Members!  I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and tell you a little about our Section’s mentoring program. I’m Alberto and a student member of the Occupational Health and Safety Section of the APHA. Regardless of your level of training and professional career development, we could all use a little independent and unbiased advice from our peers from time to time. So why not let the OHS Section support your efforts to receive (or give) advice to other OHS Section members? In collaboration with the national office the OHS Section will be supporting an exclusive OHS mentoring program. The program is in its initial phases and throughout the year will solicit invitations for senior OHS experts to serve as mentors. They will complete a brief informative data sheet that will collect information on their area of expertise, strengths, demographics and desire and type of mentorship they can provide. Simultaneously, the OHS mentoring program will invite junior members of the Section to express interest in being paired with a mentor by providing simple information on their career interests. Throughout the year the mentorship program will check in with the mentorship dyad to assess how periodic meetings are unfolding. The OHS mentoring program is open to suggestions for improving the program, so please feel free to e-mail me with constructive comments that enhance the activities provided to our Section. Send e-mail to: acaban@med.miami.edu (Alberto Caban-Martinez) with your interest to serve as a mentor or to be a mentee.