Background: Over a decade ago, the Association of American Medical Colleges called for incorporation of disaster medicine training into the education of medical students in the United States. Despite this recommendation, similar suggestions by other professional organizations, and significant interest from medical students and educators, few medical schools explicitly include robust disaster training in their curricula.
Objectives: This study describes the results of the implementation of a novel medical student curriculum in disaster response at an allopathic U.S. medical school. Specifically, this study evaluates the effectiveness of a voluntary training program in increasing the knowledge of medical students to respond to disasters.
Methods: Over 2 years, 24 hours of training consisting of didactics and hands-on exercises was delivered to medical students by volunteers from the Department of Emergency Medicine. Student knowledge was tested prior to and after each training session through a multiple-choice questionnaire and evaluated using a paired t-test.
Results: Consistent with previous studies, this voluntary disaster curriculum improved students' knowledge of emergency preparedness. The mean test score for all students participating in the training increased from 5.30 ± 1.05 (with a maximum score of 10), to 7.98±0.96 post course.
Conclusion: This intervention represents a low-cost, high-impact mechanism for improving the capacity of an underutilized segment of the health care team to respond to public health emergencies.
Keywords: disaster medicine; emergency preparedness and response; mass casualty incident; medical education.
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