Disaster response during residency

[monkeybutt]

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Have any of you been able to do disaster response medicine during residency? Katrina? Haiti? How does that work?

 

[Universe_Explorer]

Have any of you been able to do disaster response medicine during residency? Katrina? Haiti? How does that work?

I'm a resident at ORMC and I leave for Haiti on Monday. We have three residents that were down there all last week, and this week a small group of residents, attendings, and nurses from our ED are going. I happen to be on my EMS month, and the medical director gave his blessing for me to go help. The other residents were able to shift their schedules around to accommodate for the days needed. It's the great thing about having residents who are friends, attendings who care, and 12 hour shifts (less days worked = more flexibility)...

I'm sure other programs have people going to help. I know our old EMS Fellow - who I think is at Wisconsin now - has already been down there for awhile, but I don't know if he brought residents. I know quite a few programs had residents go to New Orleans after Katrina.

 

[Tiger26]

I'm a resident at ORMC and I leave for Haiti on Monday. We have three residents that were down there all last week, and this week a small group of residents, attendings, and nurses from our ED are going. I happen to be on my EMS month, and the medical director gave his blessing for me to go help. The other residents were able to shift their schedules around to accommodate for the days needed. It's the great thing about having residents who are friends, attendings who care, and 12 hour shifts (less days worked = more flexibility)...

I'm sure other programs have people going to help. I know our old EMS Fellow - who I think is at Wisconsin now - has already been down there for awhile, but I don't know if he brought residents. I know quite a few programs had residents go to New Orleans after Katrina.

If he's at UW, I know a few of their residents went down there the last week or two

 

[monkeybutt]

I'm actually curious about the logistics of this, besides getting time off and what not. Are you working with an organization to go down there? How do you know where to go? How do you know which clinic/hospital to work with, etc? Are you doing this as part of the national DMAT response system, and if so how does that work?

 

[Venko]

One of our residents, at Mayo Clinic, traveled to Haiti briefly recently to assist in medical aid under the supervision of organizations with whom our residency has connections. It took a lot of work to get this done, but it happened on very short notice.

 

[monkeybutt]

Hm. I wonder if they take vacation time or just rearrange their clinical schedule or (wonder of wonders) the program gives them a waiver for that time.