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LETTERS
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Experience with Hearing Loss
MAKING ACCOMMODATIONS
Thank you for your article on working with a disability (“OEHS and Disability: Building a More Accessible and Accommodating Profession,” November 2024 issue).
As a CIH who started in safety in 1977, I have worked in industries and locations with high noise levels. Even earlier, in high school, I was often in noisy environments, working around farm equipment. While I don’t consider myself to have a disability, I do use hearing aids in both ears, and I find it difficult to understand speech in situations with high background noise. It is also not unusual for me to ask people to repeat themselves due to my failure or inability to understand what was just said. While I haven’t experienced any negative feedback from my employer—in fact, I’ve been told the direct opposite: “You can’t retire yet”—I have needed to make accommodations for my hearing loss.
Protecting your hearing needs to begin early, years before you graduate and enter the workforce.
For many meetings, I choose to attend remotely via Microsoft Teams with headphones, video cameras, and computer screen. This takes background noise out of the communication equation. When analyzing noise and sound in the field, I now rely much more on instrumentation than I did previously.
Your article is also helpful to me personally by outlining additional ways to deal with my reduced ability to hear. This ability to compensate for my hearing will likely be a key factor when I decide to fully retire. I will semi-retire in about five months.
Please caution everyone that protecting your hearing needs to begin early, years before you graduate and enter the workforce. Children and teenagers need to avoid loud noises such as music, gunfire, chainsaws and similar equipment, etcetera. Don’t forget about controlling exposure to ototoxins as well, which can be found in many industries, including oil refining and oil and gas well fields.
Thanks for listening to an old field industrial hygienist.
L. Alan Shookman, CIH
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