Minimizing Postdisaster Fatalities

David B Brown1, Micah J Smith1, Mohamed Tazi Chibi1

  • 1is a physician assistant in the urology department at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System and a lieutenant colonel in the Utah Air National Guard; and is an emergency department physician and a lieutenant colonel in the Utah Air National Guard. is the head of the logistics division at the Mohammed V Military Hospital in Rabat and a lieutenant colonel in the Moroccan military; is a health care supervisor in emergency and sports medicine at the Ministry of Health in Rabat, Morocco; and is a resident in anesthesia resuscitation at Moulay Ismail Military Hospital in Meknes and a captain in the Royal Armed Forces of Morocco.

Summary

Rapid response and planning are key to reducing deaths from environmental disasters. Implementing strategies like efficient resource use and quick-response teams saves lives.

Related Concept Videos

Types of Errors: Detection and Minimization01:12

Types of Errors: Detection and Minimization

Error is the deviation of the obtained result from the true, expected value or the estimated central value. Errors are expressed in absolute or relative terms.
Absolute error in a measurement is the numerical difference from the true or central value. Relative error is the ratio between absolute error and the true or central value, expressed as a percentage.
Errors can be classified by source, magnitude, and sign. There are three types of errors: systematic, random, and gross.
Systematic or...
11.3K
Obedience01:08

Obedience

According to obedience research, we may harm others under the forceful pressures of an authority figure (Milgram, 1974). How about if the inappropriate orders were delivered with less force? The increasing interdependence between nurses and physicians compelled Hofling and his colleagues to explore nurses’ reactions to a potentially harmful medical request made by the perceived authority figure, the doctor (Hofling, Brotzman, Dalrymple, Graves, & Pierce, 1966). In this situation,...
35.6K
Bystander Effect02:09

Bystander Effect

The discussion of bullying highlights the problem of witnesses not intervening to help a victim. This is a common occurrence, as the following well-publicized event demonstrates. In 1964, in Queens, New York, a 19-year-old woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked by a person with a knife near the back entrance to her apartment building and again in the hallway inside her apartment building. When the attack occurred, she screamed for help numerous times and eventually died from her stab wounds.
10.3K
Amyloid Fibrils03:03

Amyloid Fibrils

Amyloid fibrils are aggregates of misfolded proteins.  Under most circumstances, misfolded proteins are either refolded by chaperone proteins or degraded by the proteasome. However, in the case of a mutation or a disease, these proteins can accumulate to form large clusters and often further assemble to form elongated fibers, called fibrils. 
Amyloid deposits were observed as early as 1639 in the liver and the spleen.   In 1854, Rudolph Virchow performed iodine staining,...
11.9K
VSEPR Theory and the Basic Shapes02:52

VSEPR Theory and the Basic Shapes

Overview of VSEPR Theory
84.4K
Le Chatelier's Principle: Changing Concentration02:27

Le Chatelier's Principle: Changing Concentration

A system at equilibrium is in a state of dynamic balance, with forward and reverse reactions taking place at equal rates. If an equilibrium system is subjected to a change in conditions that affects these reaction rates differently (a stress), then the rates are no longer equal and the system is not at equilibrium. The system will subsequently experience a net reaction in the direction of a greater rate (a shift) that will re-establish the equilibrium. This phenomenon is summarized by Le...
65.6K