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Professionalization of Disaster Medicine—An Appraisal of Criterion-Referenced Qualifications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

David A. Bradt  and
Christina M Drummond
David A. Bradt*
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Victoria, Australia, and Center for Refugee and Disaster Response, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Christina M Drummond
Affiliation:
Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Epidemiology, Monash Medical Centre, Clayton, Victoria, Australia and Center for Refugee and Disaster Response, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
*
David A. Bradt Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Grattan St. and Royal Pde., PO Box 2009, Parkville 3050 Victoria, Australia
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Abstract

The landmark Humanitarian Response Review, commissioned by the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator in 2005, has catalyzed recent reforms in disaster response through the Inter-Agency Standing Committee. These reforms include a “cluster lead” approach to sectoral responsibilities and the strengthening of humanitarian coordination. Clinical medicine, public health, and disaster incident management are core disciplines underlying expertise in disaster medicine. Technical lead agencies increasingly provide pre-deployment training for selected health personnel. Moreover, technical innovations in disaster health sciences increasingly are disseminated to the disaster field through multi-agency initiatives, such as the Standardized Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transitions (SMART) initiative.

The hallmark qualification of competency to render an informed opinion in the health specialties remains specialty board certification in North American healthcare traditions, or specialty society fellowship in British and Australasian healthcare traditions. However, disaster incident management training lacks international consensus on hallmark qualifications for competency. Disaster experience is best characterized in terms of months of fulltime, hands-on field service. Future practitioners in disaster medicine will see intensified efforts to define competency benchmarks across underlying core disciplines as well as key field performance indicators.Quantitative decisionsupport tools are emerging to assist disaster planners and medical coordinators in their personnel selection.

Keywords

criterion-referenced qualificationsdecision support toolsdisasterdisaster medicineepidemiology
Type
Special Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 22 , Issue 5 , October 2007 , pp. 360 - 368
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2007

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