PROFESSIONCourses offered on disaster preparednessCreators of the curricula hope that CME credit and other incentives may generate renewed interest.By Victoria Stagg Elliott, amednews staff. July 7, 2003. Chicago -- The American Medical Association at the organization's Annual Meeting last month launched "Basic Disaster Life Support" and "Advanced Disaster Life Support." These emergency and disaster preparedness courses aim to make training in this area more uniform and more accessible to physicians and other health care workers. "There is a tremendous amount of information out there on emergency response," said James J. James, MD, DrPH, MHA, director of the AMA Center for Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response. "But while there is a lot of material, there is not much consistency. We need to be thinking of standardization and what is required in terms of basic skills and knowledge to make our health care providers and physicians more ready."
Initial coursework will include information about explosive, nuclear, radiological, biological and chemical attacks and will explore issues that develop during an incident, such as health care worker stress and legal complications. "What the AMA seeks to do with this program is train those people on the front lines about what to look for, how to report it, how to manage it and how to be part of the process in dealing with acts of terrorism and these new diseases, such as monkeypox," said Jerome M. Hauer, MPH, acting assistant secretary for public health emergency preparedness at the Dept. of Health and Human Services. Creators of the curricula hope that a standardized coursework, accompanied by continuing medical education credit or other incentives, may generate interest in disaster preparedness education, which has waned post 9/11. "Getting the practicing physician, particularly a primary care provider, is a real challenge because there are so many competing needs," Hauer said. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:WeblinkThe AMA's Center for Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response (www.ama-assn.org/go/disasterpreparedness) Biography of the acting assistant secretary for public health emergency preparedness, Jerome M. Hauer, MPH, Dept. of Health and Human Services (www.hhs.gov/about/bios/asphep.html) Copyright 2003 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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