Disaster Medicine Curriculum: Determining a Need

Abstract

Purpose: Recent terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and mass casualty incidents have made clear the need for properly trained healthcare personnel. Whether or not medical schools require their students to participate in any disaster medicine curriculum, and whether it is beneficial, is currently under review in the medical curriculum. The purpose of this study is to evaluate if fourth year medical students in the state of Arizona have experience in disaster medicine and to determine if they think it should be a part of the medical school curriculum. Design: We created a digital questionnaire assessed the background of the medical student answering the questions and the comfort level of the medical student with disaster medicine, using a 5-point Likert response scale. Results: We found that 51% of students who took the survey felt inadequate to some degree with their disaster medicine training so far and that 69% of respondents think there should be more training within the medical school curriculum. There was no significant difference in confidence to triage and treat disaster medicine patients between students who had received training as premedical students versus those who had not. There was a significant difference in confidence to triage and treat disaster medicine patients between students who had received training in medical school and those who had not. Conclusion: The majority of students in this survey did not feel adequately prepared for disaster medicine and thought that it should be included within the medical school curriculum. Students who had already been exposed to disaster medicine in medical school felt more confident in their ability to triage and treat patients than those who had not.