About Us
In December of 2005, a group of 10 medical students from Temple University School of Medicine, representing all 4 years, and one family practice physician traveled to New Orleans to assist in providing medical care after Katrina. One and a half years later, we returned to once again assist a clinic in New Orleans and to see if we, as medical students, could be a valuable resource after a disaster. Our experiences in New Orleans have led us to believe that medical students can and should provide valuable assistance after a disaster. We therefore created a program designed to teach the skills required for such a venture to be successful.
The Temple Emergency Action Corps (TEAC) will be able to mobilize quickly in the event of local, national, or international disaster to provide basic medical care to those affected by the disaster. In addition to the provision of medical services, the corps will serve to embolden current medical curriculum by reinforcing the cultural competency objective through experiential learning. We also hope the corps will foster a sense of community and build relationships between Temple alumni, students, faculty, and health professionals and the local and state public health system. Eventually, TEAC can serve as a model for other medical schools and health profession groups seeking to find an effective way to respond to disaster, ultimately increasing the number of trained responders available to work within regional and national disaster plans.
In order to provide students with the skills we believe necessary in a disaster response situation, we have designed a semester long elective for first and second year medical students. Skills will be taught through both didactic and hands-on training sessions. Didactic sessions will cover topics such as working with traumatized populations, working effectively with government agencies and nongovernmental relief agencies, knowledge of Incident Command structure and functioning, awareness of vulnerable populations, psychological first-aid/working with traumatized populations, and infection control. Hands-on programs will include Standardized Patient programs, clinical simulation centers, and BDLS/ADLS training.It is our goal that students enrolled in the elective will emerge from the program with the following skills:
- History taking
- Physical exam
- Basic wound care
- Suturing
- CPR
- Common infectious agents
- Incident command training
- Disaster mental health
The above skill set has proven useful during prior trips. While every student may not use every skill, all students should be comfortable with the possibility of using each one in a real-life situation.
We believe that the most effective learning takes place in a hands-on setting. In order to best prepare future physicians to lead disaster response, we will facilitate annual medical student participation in response to local, regional, national, and/or international disaster. While the United States has, fortunately, a limited number of disaster-relief opportunities, there are many viable international situations from which to learn. Refugee camps, clinics in remote villages, and various disasters are excellent opportunities to both provide aid and learn skills that can be used at home in the event of disaster.
More important than any skills taught, the students in this program will be able to foster their own senses of compassion, flexibility, initiative, and common sense- skills from which future patients in all situations will doubtlessly benefit.
