Faculty Bibliography

The weather-related disasters in 2017 in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, the 2017-2018 wildfire seasons in California and Hurricanes Florence and Michael in 2018 have challenged all healthcare professionals, to have plans in place to protect their facility, patients, and staff from all possible hazards. These were "slowly developing" events, with enormous media coverage, and yet the results were still horrific. The need to have both a good evacuation plan and a good shelter-in-place plan has previously been dramatically demonstrated. When planning for disasters, it is critical for healthcare providers to understand the nature of a particular event and its possible consequences. When the concern arises about either an individual medical facility, or a whole community's well-being, a proper response requires significant levels of preparedness, education, and training. Comprehension of the threat and an understanding of the resources available to combat an event can significantly mitigate the possible damage. This article reviews a dental school curriculum to prepare students to respond to such contingencies while describing the goals, and sources for a disaster preparedness syllabus.

Background: We surveyed the podiatric medicine professional and academic leadership concerning podiatric medicine professionals as disaster surge responders. Methods: All US podiatric medical school deans and state society presidents were mailed a self-administered structured questionnaire. The leaders were asked to complete the questionnaire and return it by mail; two repeated mailings were made. Descriptive statistics were produced, and differences between deans and society presidents were tested by the Fisher exact test. Results: The response rate was 100% for the deans and 53% for the society presidents. All of the respondents agreed that podiatric physicians have skills applicable to catastrophe response, are ethically obligated to help, and should receive additional training in catastrophe response. Deans and society presidents agreed with the statements that podiatric physicians should provide basic first aid and place sutures, obtain medical histories, and assist with maintaining infection control. With one exception, all of the society presidents and deans agreed that with additional training, podiatric physicians could interpret radiographs, start intravenous lines, conduct mass casualty triage, manage a point of distribution, prescribe medications, and provide counseling to the worried well. There was variability in responses across the sources for training. Conclusions: These findings suggest that deliberations regarding academic competencies at the podiatric medical school level and continuing education should be conducted by the profession for a surge response role, including prevention, response, mitigation, and recovery activities. After coordination and integration with response agencies, podiatric medicine has a role in strengthening the nation's catastrophic event surge response.

BACKGROUND: A study was completed to assess the academic and state-level professional optometry leadership views regarding optometry professionals as surge responders in the event of a catastrophic event. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a 21-question, self-administered, structured questionnaire. All U.S. optometry school deans and state optometric association presidents were mailed a questionnaire and instructions to return it by mail on completion; 2 repeated mailings were made. Descriptive statistics were produced and differences between deans and association presidents were tested by Fisher exact test. RESULTS: The questionnaire response rate was 50% (25 returned/50 sent) for the state association presidents and 65% (11/17) for the deans. There were no statistically significant differences between the leadership groups for any survey questions. All agreed that optometrists have the skills, are ethically obligated to help, and that optometrists should receive additional training for participation in disaster response. There was general agreement that optometrists should provide first-aid, obtain medical histories, triage, maintain infection control, manage a point of distribution, prescribe medications, and counsel the 'worried well.' Starting intravenous lines, interpreting radiographs, and suturing were less favorably supported. There was some response variability between the 2 leadership groups regarding potential sources for training. CONCLUSIONS: The overall opinion of optometry professional leadership is that with additional training, optometrists can and should provide an important reserve pool of catastrophic event responders

The United States was awakened to the perils of bioterrorism in October 2001 with the news that letters laced with anthrax had been mailed to the media and select politicians. At that time, it became evident that a widescale attack using a bioweapon of mass destruction could rapidly overwhelm the health care system. Dentists could make a tremendous contribution to the response of such an attack by gaining an understanding of the bioweapons that could be used, as well as the symptoms of their diseases and therapies for treatment. This article gives a general overview of the biological agents that terrorists are most likely to use and provides the dentist with information about how to contribute to an effective response in the event of such an attack

BACKGROUND: Members of the established public health systems and medical community must understand that, in medical surge events, members of the dental profession and other non-traditional disaster health care personnel are an additional source of assistance in response activities. METHODS: The authors relied on hands-on experience, expert consultations, literature reviews and Web searches to identify disaster response training programs appropriate for members of the dental profession and other health care personnel. RESULTS: The authors identified multiple governmental and professional disaster training programs. CONCLUSIONS: Five key national-level programs address the training and organization of health care professionals to support a large-scale disaster program. Because of their training and skills, dental professionals would be valuable additions to these programs and could make significant contributions if natural disasters and/or terrorist events were to occur