Dear Editors,
Pfenninger et al. [1] presented in a recent research paper an outline of a curriculum covering medical student disaster education. Their work demonstrated an interdisciplinary format and multi-experiential structure for a curriculum. However, understanding the rationales for including such a component in a medical curriculum might need to be clearly highlighted. Furthermore, many universities are lacking expertise in this area and find it challenging to take such decisions. These two issues were not adequately addressed by Pfenninger et al. in their paper.
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Disasters caused by earthquakes, hurricanes, cyclones, other natural disasters or terrorist attacks put us in situations with a high level of threat to life, property and the environment. The recent earthquake in January 2010 in the Haitian region reflects the wide scale of such damages [1]. However, looking carefully beyond this catastrophe, we realize that there has been an increasing pattern of such disasters over the last 10 years (Table 1). A careful review of data reveals that disasters caused by earthquakes with such large scale have not occurred since the 1920 Haiyuan earthquake in China. Such a trend raises the need for including a training component in the undergraduate medical and other health professional curricula covering disaster management systems and public health preparedness. The aim is to enable graduates to be prepared for risk management, how to work as part of a team and how to use a wide range of skills to respond to potential disasters in an increasingly interconnected world. Searching PubMed for medical schools that have included disasters in their programs reveals that there are a few programs covering parts of this concept [3‐5]. Leadership in modern medicine and global health and the need in such disasters for expertise of diverse groups of health professionals necessitate that such programs be developed by collaboration between universities in the risk areas and other universities. Such initiatives might open new scopes of collaboration in the area of global health, medical education and students’ training.
Table 1
Deaths from major earthquakes, natural disasters and terror attacks from 1999 to 2010*
Year | Place | Deaths | Magnitude/others |
|---|---|---|---|
January 2010 | Haitian region | 222,570 | 7.0 |
September 2009 | Southern Sumatra, Indonesia | 1,117 | 7.5 |
March/April 2009 up to April 2010 | Mexico and then spread worldwide to over 206 countries | At least 17,700** | Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 flu pandemic |
May 2008 | Eastern Sichuan, China | 87,587 | 7.9 |
May 2008 | Myanmar (Burma) | 22,000 | Cyclone Nargis |
May 2006 | Indonesia | 5,749 | 6.3 |
October 2005 | Pakistan | 86,000 | 7.6 |
October 2005 | Mexico, Cuba, US state of Florida | 63 | Hurricane Wilma (Category 5) |
August 2005 | Bahamas, Cuba, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama | 1,836 | Hurricane Katrina (Category 5) |
March 2005 | Northern Sumatra, Indonesia | 1,313 | 8.6 |
December 2004 | Sumatra | 227,898 | 9.1 |
December 2003 | Southern Iran | 31,000 | 6.6 |
August 2003 | France | 11,000*** | Heat waves |
May 2003 | Northern Algeria | 2,266 | 6.8 |
March 2002 | Afghanistan | 1,000 | 6.1 |
January 2001 | Gujarat, India | 20,085 | 7.6 |
September 2001 | New York, USA | 2,976 | Terror attacks |
September 1999 | Taiwan | 2,400 | 7.6 |
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