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Conference focuses on disaster response
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Scottsdale probably will never be hit by a hurricane, but medical professionals are trying to learn from last year’s events to prepare for major disasters.
This year’s trauma conference at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn hospital will focus on responding to large-scale catastrophes. The third annual conference for industry professionals begins today and will cover topics such as the threats of biological and chemical weapons, and what not to do during a large-scale emergency.
“We need to learn how we can work together to identify those issues, so when natural disasters come up, we are ready with what we are going to do,” said Charles Finch, director of continuing medical education and an emergency physician at Scottsdale Healthcare.
Disaster-related issues have become a national concern, Finch said, and Scottsdale Healthcare medical professionals wanted to address the issue locally.
For Scottsdale, a large-scale catastrophe could mean a plane crash, a spill in a biological lab or a bombing.
Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn already is equipped to set up a secondary hospital in the adjacent parking garage in case of a large disaster, Finch said. The next step would be coordination between hospital departments, police and fire departments.
Susan Briggs, attending surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, spent a month in New Orleans as the head doctor for the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Hurricane Katrina. While there, she coordinated care for a city that had no functioning hospitals for several weeks.
Briggs will speak at the conference.
Hospital care during a disaster is different, she said.
“In everyday medicine, when you dial 911, it is the best care for the individual patient,” she said. “Mass casualty means the greatest good for the greatest number of people.”
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