This August, theaters across the U.S. will once again tremble under the mighty footsteps of a monster. The Japanese movie Shin Godzilla is being re-released on the big screen, and G-fans are gearing up for the spectacle. While many have seen it before - some more than once- the excitement isn’t diminished. There’s just something special about experiencing it again, this time with fresh eyes, maybe catching a detail missed the first time or understanding a deeper theme that wasn’t obvious before. That’s the value of a re-release, it brings back something familiar but gives it new meaning. In the same way, that’s also the value of ongoing lab safety training.
Safety training isn’t something that is performed once and forgotten. Yet in far too many laboratories, that’s exactly what happens. Do you have a new employee? Train them. Have they been here a few years? Maybe you should do a yearly fire drill and that’s it. However, just like you don’t learn everything about a movie the first time through, employees don’t truly grasp lab safety in one sitting. Policies evolve, the environment changes, and even more importantly, people change - their habits, their memory, and their awareness.
I once asked a lab tech how long ago they had completed their bloodborne pathogen training. The answer? “I think we did that a few years ago. I just clicked through the slides.” Not exactly the kind of mindset you want when handling infectious materials. That is why retraining isn’t optional, it’s essential.
Ongoing safety training should be viewed as a renewal of a culture, not a bureaucratic requirement. Every year, we remind ourselves and each other of how to work safely, not because we forgot everything, but because we may have forgotten something. In the lab environment, one forgotten step can be all it takes to create an exposure, injury, or worse.
The average laboratory professional’s day is fast-paced, high-pressure, often understaffed, and full of distractions. Those conditions are perfect for safety shortcuts to sneak in. The biosafety cabinet that is overdue for certification still gets used. That formalin spill that did not get cleaned up right away continues to off-gas. The overfilled sharps container has needles protruding from the top just waiting to cause an unknown source exposure. These behaviors don't usually come from malice or laziness; they come from familiarity and assumption. The antidote to those assumptions is a solid, ongoing safety training program.
But let’s be honest: training can’t be boring. Clicking through a generic online module with stock photos of people in lab coats is effective. People remember stories, not slides. They remember the tale of a real-life lab fire that started because someone didn’t store chemicals properly. They remember hearing about the time a tech got a needlestick from a hidden sharp and had to endure days of anxiety waiting for serology results. When we use real examples and engage the heart as well as the mind, training becomes something else entirely—something sticky.
That’s also why it matters how retraining is performed. Mix it up, use games, team-based challenges, mock drills, or hazard hunts. Do a safety “director’s cut”—review incidents from the past year like a movie recap and identify what went well and what could have gone better. Let staff contribute ideas. Let them tell their own stories. Safety shouldn’t feel like something handed down from above; it should feel like something we all have a hand in directing.
Let’s forget about the new plot twists—new standards from OSHA, CAP, or The Joint Commission; emerging pathogens; chemical inventory updates; or that new piece of equipment with the confusing controls. These aren’t just changes to a script, they are additions to the story we are all living in the lab every day. That story only makes sense if everyone knows the updated lines.
Releasing a film like Shin Godzilla again gives people a chance to engage with something that meant a lot to them the first time. It reminds fans why they cared, and maybe helps new viewers see what all the fuss was about. When we re-release lab safety - through retraining, refreshers, and reinforcement - we do the same thing. We remind ourselves why this matters. We remember the details we overlooked. We learn something new. And we stay safer, together. Don’t wait for an incident to remind you that safety is important. Re-release it before something goes off-script. Because in this story, we don’t need another monster—we just need everyone to get home safely.