A&M runs disaster scenario to prepare student response
More than 750 Texas A&M University students got a lesson in disaster preparation during an annual Disaster Day simulation.
The 14th annual training exercise held by Texas A&M University’s Health Science Center was designed to prepare students for the pressure of a disaster scenario.
Participants included students from the Texas A&M College of Medicine, College of Nursing, Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy, School of Public Health, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, athletic training, psychology and the Corps of Cadets, as well as agencies such as the Texas Department of Emergency Management, Texas State Guard and the American Red Cross.
Each year a new scenario is selected to provide students the experience of a real-life situation, said Dee Dee Grays, a spokeswoman for Texas A&M Health. This year’s scenario was a forest fire.
Friday’s training exercise began with a “search and rescue” operation in a forested area at the back of Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service’s Disaster City training facility. Once found, “patients” in the simulation are taken to a triage area.
From there, said Dr. Leroy Marklund, clinical assistant professor at the Texas A&M College of Nursing, those that need immediate life-saving treatment will be sent to a field hospital or a mobile medical unit.
Veterinary students were dispatched to help take care of family pets that were affected by the wildfire, Marklund said.
Over at the field hospital, people portraying injured patients mimicked injuries and demonstrating trauma by screaming, limping or crying.
If patients life-threatening injuries don’t receive the care they need in a timely manner, they’ll die, said Gerard Carrino, department head and instructional professor at Texas A&M’S School of Public Health.
Carrino said management policy and health administration students were also included in the exercise, to simulate processes that would safeguard public health.
Justin Dugie, a first-year student in Texas A&M University’s College of Medicine, served as the incident commander during the event, coordinating the scenario and dispersing information to the various groups.
“We don’t get to intermingle as much as I would like and so this is one of those situations where you get a firsthand view of what nurses do and their responsibilities versus what doctors do versus what pharmacist do,” Dugie said. “For a lot of these people, it’s their first chance to work in a setting that’s relatively high stress, and so trainings like this are the only way they can discover what you need to work on and how to improve, so when it actually happens you’re not wasting time losing people.”
Dugie said he hopes students in the exercise recognize the importance of working with other disciplines and breaking down preconceptions they may have had.