Doctor interest in bioterrorism is wearing off

Keeping classes fresh proves a challenge for CME providers such as those in Florida and at the AMA.

By Myrle Croasdale, AMNews staff. June 24, 2002.

The obliteration of the World Trade Center and the anthrax-laced letters that followed triggered a flood of physician interest in bioterrorism.

Now that the cleanup of the World Trade Center is over and no new cases of anthrax have appeared, the number of physicians clamoring for information on signs of smallpox or how to treat people exposed to nuclear fallout has slacked off, according to Bernd Wollschlaeger, MD.

Dr. Wollschlaeger created the biological and chemical terrorism continuing medical education course for the Florida Medical Assn., the online version of which is marked down on the FMA Web site.

"The threat has passed, nothing new has happened and people have lost interest," he said.

Only those already invested in public health are still turning up for his classes. "They understand it's a long-term investment," he added.

Dr. Wollschlaeger, who lives in the state where the first anthrax death occurred, picked up his background on disaster preparedness through the Israeli Defense Forces and kept it up when he moved to the United States. He is now a family physician in North Miami Beach, Fla.

"From my patients' point of view it's not a topic anymore, but I still bring it up and give them handouts, sneaking it in when I bring up hurricane preparedness," he said. "I imagine other office-based physicians have forgotten the topic's importance, like HIV. It was hot in the news years ago, but interest has waned, and there's been a slight surge in new infections." [...]