Disaster 101: a novel approach to disaster medicine training for health professionals.

Background: Despite efforts to improve preparedness training for health professionals, disaster medicine remains a peripheral component of traditional medical education in the United States (US) and is a rarely studied topic in the medical literature.

Objectives: Using a pre-/post-test design, we measured the extent to which 4(th)-year medical students perceive, rapidly learn, and apply basic concepts of disaster medicine via a novel curriculum.

Methods: Via a modified Delphi technique, an expert curriculum panel developed a 90-min didactic training scenario and two 40-min training exercises for medical students: a hazardous material scene and a surprise mass casualty incident (MCI) scenario with 100 life-sized mannequins.

South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium Disaster Preparedness and Response Training Network: an emerging partner in preparedness training.

The South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium (SC AHEC) was funded in 2003 to train healthcare professionals in disaster preparedness and response. During the 5 years of funding, its Disaster Preparedness and Response Training Network evolved from disaster awareness training to competency-based instruction and performance assessment. With funding from the assistant secretary for preparedness and response (ASPR), a project with implications for national dissemination was developed to evaluate 2 aspects of preparedness training for community-based healthcare professionals.