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p h i l a m e d s o c  .org

FEATURE

Physicians Are Essential to Expanding
Health Department Responses During
Large-Scale Public Health Emergencies
By: Chad Thomas, MPH

The May 2017 bombing at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, demonstrates that devastating events can happen
when they are least expected. Public health emergencies in particular
include any large-scale disaster or crisis with the potential to harm
the health of the public. Examples can include bioterrorism (like
the anthrax letters of 2001), radiological events (such as a "dirty"
bomb containing radioactive material), pandemic influenza (like
2009 H1N1 flu) or severe or unusual diseases (such as Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS). These events can lead
to hundreds or even thousands of casualties, and leave survivors
with a range of physical and mental health consequences that
severely tax the operations of emergency rooms and other
components of the healthcare system.

26 Philadelphia Medicine : Summer 2017

What are the roles of medical practitioners regarding public
health emergencies? Everyone must be prepared to do their part in
understanding and preventing disease characteristics, risk factors
and transmission. Physicians in particular should be ready and
willing to help their communities as part of the health services
sector emergency response. They should be prepared to identify and
diagnose novel diseases, report them to the health department, order
appropriate laboratory tests, and provide prevention and control
recommendations to patients. In emergency settings, they may be
asked to use their professional expertise to triage disaster victims
and ensure that only the severely ill or injured are referred
to hospitals; help patients at evacuation shelters obtain
refills of their daily medications; or (in the case of a
bioterrorist attack or epidemic) dispense emergency
antibiotics or vaccines.



https://philamedsoc.org/

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