Archive for Emergency Preparedness

Educating in Emergency Preparedness

In today’s complicated world the general field of healthcare is divided into smaller sub-specialties. In this way a health care professional can become an expert in that particular area and deliver the best possible care in that well-defined realm. One of the more interesting and perhaps less discussed specialties in health care is that of emergency health care. This includes physicians who are trained to care for people suffering from trauma or that were involved in some other sudden onset emergency and is brought to an emergency room which is either part of a hospital, or in some cases free-standing. Also delivering emergency health care are those professionals that arrive to the place of the emergency, such as an earthquake, car accident, toxic waste spill, or a host of others. Often these people are not physicians, but are specially trained experts affiliated with the police or fire departments, and are sometimes even volunteers. These professionals are known as EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) and paramedics. In both cases these are people who are experts in handling a crisis in a cool and calm manner. The appropriateness of their response often means the difference between life and death. In the case of a doctor in the emergency room, they often receive patients who have already been treated and stabilized by the EMT or paramedic on site or in an ambulance and are brought to the emergency room for further care. Emergency room doctors also treat patients who come in on their own with a family member or friend, and have not yet had any care or treatment for the emergency or acute health care issue. In either case, emergency room doctors, EMTs and paramedics are an important sub-specialty in the large health-care universe, whose great devotion and dedication to their fields allows them to save many lives and help many people in significant ways.