Disaster medicine and public health preparedness
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Disaster Med Public Health Prep · Sep 2010
Emergency preparedness for residency/fellowship programs: lessons learned during Hurricane Katrina and applied during Hurricane Ike.
When it struck the US Gulf Coast in 2005, Hurricane Katrina severely disrupted many graduate medical education residency/fellowship programs in the region and the training of hundreds of residents/fellows. Despite the work of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in responding to this natural disaster and facilitating communication and transfer of residents/fellows to other unaffected training programs, the storm exposed the gaps in the existing system. ⋯ These policies were instrumental in the rapid relocation of 597 residents/fellows from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston after the landfall of Hurricane Ike in September 2008. As a further accommodation to affected trainees, medical certification boards should be as flexible as possible in waiving continuity requirements in the event of a disaster that affects residency/fellowship programs.