Mass casualty is a situation, in which, the physician is compelled to make critical decisions under heavy pressure load, due to severe shortage in time, personnel and information. This task is extremely difficult to fulfill, as the physician has to consider not only professional tools, but needs also to utilize ethical principles, in order to provide the best possible care to most of the casualties who might benefit from it. By definition, in the mass casualty situation the medical facility lacks temporarily the ability to deliver effective therapy to all, as the injured outnumber the medical capacity for a given time. The ethical conflicts and dilemmas that arise during such an event are enormous. Amazingly, only a few articles have addressed the issue of ethical considerations during mass casualty situation. Ethical decision making is based on four principles: beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy and justice. Compassion, trustworthiness, discernment and integrity are the four qualities required from those practicing medicine. These virtues should be manifested in mass casualty situations, one of the most demanding situations a physician may face.
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J Med Internet Res
January 2025
Psychological Institute and Network Aging Research, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany.
Background: Immersive virtual reality (iVR) has emerged as a training method to prepare medical first responders (MFRs) for mass casualty incidents (MCIs) and disasters in a resource-efficient, flexible, and safe manner. However, systematic evaluations and validations of potential performance indicators for virtual MCI training are still lacking.
Objective: This study aimed to investigate whether different performance indicators based on visual attention, triage performance, and information transmission can be effectively extended to MCI training in iVR by testing if they can discriminate between different levels of expertise.
Mil Med
January 2025
Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command, 620 John Paul Jones Cir, Portsmouth, VA 23708, USA.
Background: The U.S. military utilizes small, forward deployed surgical teams to provide Role 2 surgical care in austere environments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFuture military conflicts are likely to involve peer or near-peer adversaries in large-scale combat operations, leading to casualty rates not seen since World War II. Casualty volume, combined with anticipated disruptions in medical evacuation, will create resource-limited environments that challenge medical responders to make complex, repetitive triage decisions. Similarly, pandemics, mass casualty incidents, and natural disasters strain civilian health care providers, increasing their risk for exhaustion, burnout, and moral injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Multidiscip Healthc
January 2025
Department of Critical Care and Emergency Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Universitas Padjadjaran, Sumedang, 45363, Indonesia.
Background: The incidence of mass casualty incidents and severe emergencies such as cerebrovascular and motor vehicle accidents in Indonesia is increasing, leading to an increased burden on emergency services. The current literature on response times and associated factors in Indonesian emergency departments (EDs) is extensive yet lacks comprehensive national and regional analysis.
Objective: This study aimed to synthesize existing research on emergency nurse response times in Indonesian hospital settings and identify the factors influencing these times.
Confl Health
January 2025
CRIMEDIM - Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100, Novara, Italy.
Background: The evolving nature of irregular warfare and the increasingly frequent violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law pose unique challenges for humanitarian actors delivering trauma care in conflict settings.
Methods: A scoping review was conducted on PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science and a web search (on Google, Google scholar and Bing) to analyze and review past humanitarian interventions offering trauma care in conflict settings. Relevant records were identified from scientific and grey literature.
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