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U.S. Response: AMA Announces New Training Courses for Health Care Workers The American Medical Association announced yesterday the creation of new training courses to prepare doctors and other health care workers for mass casualty events, such as a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, June 7, 2002). The two courses, a basic course and a follow-up advanced level, focus on a wide range of potential mass casualties events and related issues, such as nuclear and radiological attacks, biological incidents, chemical incidents and medical decontamination issues, according to an association press release. The courses were developed by the association in conjunction with the medical schools in Georgia and Texas. The new courses will help provide a standardized approach to training health care professionals in disaster response, said James James, director of the new AMA Center for Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response. “Currently, there is a tremendous amount of information out there on emergency response,” James said. “But while there is a lot of material, there is not much consistency. We need to be thinking of standardization and what is required in terms of basic skills and knowledge to make our health care providers and physicians more ready,” he said. Physicians will receive continuing medical education credit for taking the new courses, according to the association release. The association is also working to develop additional courses that will focus on logistical issues and target the general public. In addition, the association is also working to develop a system to teach the courses online. The courses will initially be targeted at current health care workers, but there are also plans to incorporate them into medical school education, according to Richard Schwartz, director of the Center of Operational Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia. “Disaster medicine has not been a traditional part of medical education, so there is a tremendous need for a train-up for the country,” Schwartz said. “I think our first phase will be to do that initial train-up for the health care providers who are out there. To sustain that training is the next piece, where we have ongoing training within medical schools and nursing schools for students coming through so this becomes an integrated part of our mission,” he said (American Medical Association release, June 16).
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