The South Dakota Model: Health Care Professions Student Disaster Preparedness and Deployment Training.

Objective: The Association of American Medical Colleges recommended an increase in medical education for public health emergencies, bioterrorism, and weapons of mass destruction in 2003. The University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine (USD SSOM) implemented a 1-day training event to provide disaster preparedness training and deployment organization for health professions students called Disaster Training Day (DTD).

Methods: Hospital staff and emergency medical services personnel provided the lecture portion of DTD using Core Disaster Life Support (CDLS; National Disaster Life Support Foundation) as the framework.