Terror Medicine: Education and Training

If a mass casualty incident (MCI) occurs on American territory, the main difficulty with disaster response is not from a lack of resources or volunteers but from a lack of a properly managed disaster plan. In fact, first responders and local healthcare practitioners, and even non-clinical locals rush to the scene and to local healthcare facilities to offer their services or make donations. The presence of so many volunteers and donations can be of great help during a disaster if properly managed. Even before 9/11, hospitals were required to have a disaster plan and ensure that their employees were familiar with it. Very few hospitals, however, actually worked on coordinating their disaster response plans with other hospital facilities, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), or local governmental facilities to offer a united response in case of a disaster.(1) Healthcare institutions therefore had difficulties not only working with other institutions preparing for a disaster but also were often unprepared for managing unexpected resources from the community.