Disaster medicine and response: Optimizing life-saving potential

Natural and technological mass disasters strike densely populated areas on a regular basis, causing ever growing numbers of deaths and injured, economical losses, social problems, and damage to the environment.

This review aims to provide a comprehensive idea about the spectrum of main problems, essentially presenting a number of basic principles to save as many lives as possible after natural and man-made mega disasters.

Medical problems following disasters may be acute, acute-on-chronic, or chronic; they appear from the disaster period up till long thereafter. All these problems may be nonspecific, or specific for particular disaster types. Decreasing death toll after mass disasters can be accomplished by preparations before, and effective medical response after disasters. These interventions should be considered at both national/governmental and regional/hospital levels. Disaster medicine, the art and science of providing healthcare to the victims, differs significantly from routine medical practice because of disparities between demand and supply of rescue and healthcare, the need for unusual medical interventions, and the occurrence of ethical and legal dilemmas.

Adherence to the principles of disaster medicine, is vital to minimize the extent of medical, logistic, ethical, and legal problems, and saving as many lives as possible.