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Lectures
Disaster Preparedness and the Incident Command System
(a) Defining Disasters and Introducing the Incident Command System
A disaster is a sudden accident or a natural catastrophe that causes great damage or loss of life, which often overloads local resources.
Pre-disaster and post-disaster preparedness are thus crucial in disaster management.
The Incident Command System, abbreviated as ICS, is a set of procedures designed to address the distribution of facilities, equipment and personnel during disasters.
(b) Disaster Preparedness
Disaster preparedness is a circulation that includes four phases: prevention and mitigation, readiness, response, and recovery.
Before a disaster occurs, risk evaluations and prevention measures should be taken. Once a disaster strikes, emergency workers can work according to the ICS. Finally, reconstruction becomes the primary goal in the aftermath of disasters.
Introduction of the Disaster Medical Response System
There are many aspects that need to be considered in a disaster. Thus, categorizing disasters and realizing important aspects in a disaster is an important process. Examples of categorizations are, natural disasters (earthquakes, typhoons etc.), technical faults (car accidents, air crashes etc.), diseases (bird flu, influenzas etc), security crisis (terrorist attacks, campus violence etc.) and so on.
Medicine is an important element in disaster response, but there are of course many other elements that contribute to the system.
The framework of the disaster medical response system can be divided into three categories: medical rescue work (including the evaluation of the environment, process planning etc.), facilitation of external medical resources, and setting the goal for the disaster response mission. By being familiar with this framework, we can be more efficient in putting our efforts in responding to disasters and reach the goal of disaster medicine.
International Humanitarian Relief
As medical and communicational technology greatly progresses, news concerning different disasters can be spread and received in just a few minutes, humanitarian aid can therefore be deployed with great efficiency.
However, international humanitarian aid has its complications.
International aid outlined by stereotypes and personal imagination can easily lead to great burdens for aid receiving countries. The difficulties of resource distribution and the disparity between languages, religions, and customs will also increase burdens. Both non-governmental and governmental organizations should take measures to tackle these burdens and strike a balance between scientific efficiency and human emotion.
Workshops
The purpose of workshops is to make us practice skills and concepts learned from the lectures.
As we know, DISASTER is a wide and huge damage which happens within a very short period of time, and natural disaster is the common type. At the moment of disaster, the most vital thing is to minimize the range which disaster can influence; then, we have to organize DMAT(disaster medical assistance team) which is able to cope with almost all situations at the scene, and know how to call for backup, so that we can save more lives, minimizing the damage caused by disaster. To arrive this goal, we ought to train frequently, being familiar to any part of the DMAT, and react accurately at the first scene.
DMAT is the principal of workshops, hoping every delegate can practice skills and concepts learned in the lectures; furthermore, some workshops need team cooperation, making everyone learn how to organize a team like DMAT, working efficiently. In order to let everybody know more about Kaohsiung Gas Explosion, we will invite doctors who face the situation at ER, sharing their experiences about how to handle the whole situation. Everyone can get a closer look, and realize the important of proper react to disaster.
Hope you can join us!
Fieldwork
The knowledge and skills acquired in classes may not produce effects unless learners put them into practical applications.
Fieldwork is an exciting and challenging event where team members will engage in a virtual emergency incident by way of integrating what they have already learned from the lectures and workshops in the previous days.
Through practical participation, members will learn some professional techniques in emergency medicine on the scene, utilize the framework of the incident command system on real disasters, and distribute the limited medical resources to all patients optimally.
We hope that all members, medical students from countries all around Asia, will attach great importance to emergency medicine, and have their passions for this field aroused via this fieldwork!