World Association For Emergency Research Articles

Peter John Firth Baskett

Peter John Firth Baskett

Recommendations for Life-Supporting First-Aid training of the lay public for disaster preparedness.

In catastrophic disasters such as major earthquakes in densely populated regions, effective Life-Supporting First-Aid (LSFA) and basic rescue can be administered to the injured by previously trained, uninjured survivors (co-victims). Administration of LSFA immediately after disaster strikes can add to the overall medical response and help to diminish the morbidity and mortality that result from these events. Widespread training of the lay public also may improve bystander responses in everyday emergencies. However, for this scheme to be effective, a significant percentage of the lay population must learn in eight basic steps of LSFA. These have been developed by the International Resuscitation Research Center in collaboration with the World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine, the City of Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety, and the American Red Cross (Pennsylvania chapter). They include: 1) scene survey; 2) airway control; 3) rescue breathing (mouth-to-mouth); 4) circulation (chest compressions; may be omitted for disasters, but should be retained for everyday bystander response); 5) abdominal thrusts for choking (may be omitted for disasters, but retained for everyday bystander response); 6) control of external bleeding; 7) positioning for shock; and 8) call for help.

The World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine: Origins, Present Status, and Future Directions

The World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine: Origins, Present Status, and Future Directions

The “World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine” (WAEDM) (Club of Mainz)

The “Club of Mainz” for Improved Emergency and Disaster Medicine Worldwide was conceived in 1973 and founded in 1976 by about 10 reanimatologists under the leadership of the late Rudolf Frey (Crit Care Med 6:389, 1978). Its objectives are: “(1) to foster optimal resuscitation and life support methodologies worldwide; (2) to concern itself with a range from everyday emergencies to mass disasters, with appropriate consideration for differences in populations, available resources and other factors; and (3) to informally pursue the objectives by combining the resources of scientific, social and related information and experiences, together with international communication and collaboration.”The Club of Mainz recognizes the experiences and contributions of other organizations for public health related disaster relief, which particularly helps uninjured survivors and rehabilitates regions, but wishes to add the potentials of modern resuscitation (emergency and critical care medicine), focusing on the acutely ill or injured individual victim in distress.The Club of Mainz was inspired by the Club of Rome, which was initiated in 1968 by the late Aurelio Peccei and some other concerned non-medical leaders and scientists. The 10 non-medical key problems identified by the Club of Rome have equivalents for disaster medicine: (1) overpopulation (starvation); (2) no long range planning; (3) destruction of the environment (destruction of people); (4) business crises; (5) competitive armament leading to wars; (6) poverty (starvation, epidemics); (7) chaotic development in science and technology; (8) antiquated institutions; (9) schisms between East and West and between North and South; and (10) lacking moral leadership.

Report on "The Second International Congress In Israel on Disaster Management": Jerusalem, September 17th and 18th, 1984

I attended the conference as a military psychiatrist, in order to learn how different nations, especially Israel, manage disasters, both man-made, such as terrorist attacks, and natural, such as earthquakes and fires. The conference was organized by the three chief Israeli University Hospitals, the Israel Medical Association, and the World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine. It was divided into fifteen 'workshops', the majority running for half a day in parallel. During each workshop, an average of eight papers, each for 20 minutes, were presented. Of the total of 120 papers, 50 were from Israeli contributors, 25 from US, 10 from Sweden and seven from the UK. The workshops were organized under five main themes:

Emergency Medicine in the United States. Role in Disaster Planning and Management

International organizations such as the World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine (Club of Mainz) have brought attention to the need for improved worldwide emergency medical services (EMS) systems and disaster preparedness (1). Similar concerns in the United States (US) for improved emergency medical care have resulted in the organization of emergency medicine as a new medical specialty (2). The practice of this specialty of medicine in some ways differs from the practice of emergency medicine, reanimation medicine, or resuscitology, in Europe. In the United States, emergency medicine specialists provide emergency care for the full range of emergency health conditions, including accidents and trauma, medical emergencies, toxicologic emergencies, psychiatric and social emergencies, and disasters. This care is provided primarily in hospital emergency departments and includes the immediate initial recognition, evaluation, treatment and disposition of these patients with acute illness and injury. For continuing care, patients are referred to their own physicians.Emergency medicine physicians provide medical direction for community EMS and supervise the prehospital emergency medical care provided by non-physicians (emergency medical technicians and paramedics). Emergency physicians engage in the administration, research and teaching of all aspects of emergency medical care. They also provide consultation to governmental and nongovernmental organizations on emergency health care issues. Recently, with the basic framework of emergency medicine established, attention is being given to disaster planning and management.

The “World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine” (WAEDM) (Club of Mainz)

The “Club of Mainz” for Improved Emergency and Disaster Medicine Worldwide was conceived in 1973 and founded in 1976 by about 10 reanimatologists under the leadership of the late Rudolf Frey (Crit Care Med 6:389, 1978). Its objectives are: “(1) to foster optimal resuscitation and life support methodologies worldwide; (2) to concern itself with a range from everyday emergencies to mass disasters, with appropriate consideration for differences in populations, available resources and other factors; and (3) to informally pursue the objectives by combining the resources of scientific, social and related information and experiences, together with international communication and collaboration.”

The Challenge of Survival

There remains a challenge to improve worldwide, the medical response, and the ground safety response to the disaster of an aircraft crash. Statistically more survive all crashes than perish, and if an aircraft crashes with survivors, in most cases there will be more survivors than dead.The challenge of survival is to ensure that if an aircraft does crash, the medical and rescue response to this disaster must be immediate, competent, technically skilled and adequately equipped to save the maximum number of lives possible, and to help preserve the quality of life for all who survive. Improving safety standards has been stimulated by the excellent work of the Flight Safety Foundation, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United States Air Line Pilots Association — in particular by Captain John Stefanski and by the World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine.Many will recall that at the meeting of the Club of Mainz Association held in Monaco in 1979, a committee was appointed to investigate aircraft crash management at 100 international airports. The task of the Airport Disaster Workshop was to develop a model of emergency care for large and smaller airports, in order to produce a standard for the various groups of airports. The Club of Mainz Association has been concerned with the poor standard of medical response that has been shown at recent flight disasters. As a member of this consultant committee, it was obvious even from very early days of my research that the medical response to aircraft crash in some countries with high air traffic flows is incompetent, inadequate, and demonstrates little awareness of advances in resuscitation and on-site care of aircraft crash survivors.

The “World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine” (Waedm) (Club of Mainz)

The “World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine” (Waedm) (Club of Mainz)

The New “Journal of the World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine” (J. Waedm)

This new Journal, starting with volume 1, number 1, Spring 1985, is an official publication of the World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine (WAEDM), formerly called the Club of Mainz. The Journal is cosponsored by the League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (LRCS). The Journal is owned and published by the WAEDM. There will be 4 Journal numbers per year, plus an occasional supplement.We initiated this Journal and its predecessor (see below) because existing journals on disasters focus on sociologic and epidemiologic topics, and more on aid to uninjured survivors and rehabilitation of disaster-stricken regions, than on the resuscitation and life support of severely injured victims. Disaster medicine is not yet a science, and thus based primarily on anecdotal reports. It is in need of international communication and the acquisition of quantifiable facts. The Journal will help meet these needs by examining the potentials of resuscitation, emergency medical care and critical care (intensive care) medicine for everyday Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and for disaster medicine. The disasters to consider range from multi-casualty incidents to mass disasters and endemic disasters. Other organizations emphasize response to mass disasters after days or weeks; the WAEDM emphasizes response within minutes to hours. This Journal will benefit medical and nonmedical members of the WAEDM and the LRCS, as well as non-member specialists in anesthesiology, critical care medicine, cardiology, emergency medicine, epidemiology, forensic medicine, government medicine, infectious diseases, military medicine, nuclear medicine, nutrition, pathology, public health, resuscitology, surgery, toxicology, and traumatology.

The New “Journal of the World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine” (J. WAEDM)

This new Journal, starting with volume 1, number 1, Spring 1985, is an official publication of the World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine (WAEDM), formerly called the Club of Mainz. The Journal is cosponsored by the League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (LRCS). The Journal is owned and published by the WAEDM. There will be 4 Journal numbers per year.

Resolutions Concerning Disaster Medicine and Nuclear War

The members of the World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine (WAEDM) (The Club of Mainz) have considered the medical consequences of a major nuclear war and would like to make the following recommendations to all relevant governments and powers, and their medical professions:1. That disaster medical preparedness should be continued and developed for conventional wars, nuclear accidents and the single small nuclear bomb explosion (e.g., by accident or terrorism).