PEM Fellow University of New Mexico School of Medicine Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Background: Recent mass casualty incidents (MCI) involving children highlight the need for pediatric disaster preparedness. Pediatric MCIs are high-stress, low-frequency events. Emergency medicine (EM) residents and pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) fellows must be prepared to care for children involved in a MCI. It is crucial that they are able to perform a disaster triage and rapid trauma assessment. Education through a curriculum involving a hybrid didactic-and-simulation can help identify gaps in knowledge and improve ability to respond to MCI events. Objective: To improve pediatric disaster preparedness by developing and implementing a pediatric MCI simulation-based curriculum. Design/Methods: A simulation based curriculum for EM residents and PEM fellows was developed in the setting of a MCI. Prior to the simulation, learners received a one-hour lecture that reviewed disaster triage methodology, components of a pediatric disaster plan, and the hospital incident command system (ICS). This was followed by a two-hour simulation of a mass shooting that involved school-aged children portrayed by mannequins with varying injuries including hemorrhagic shock, traumatic cardiac tamponade, tension pneumothorax, intracranial hemorrhage, and open extremity fractures. Critical actions include declaring the disaster, activating the pediatric disaster plan, following the ICS, applying disaster triage, assigning roles, performing a primary and secondary assessment, and addressing family reunification.
Improvement in disaster preparedness was assessed through an online knowledge and confidence survey sent to the learners pre-and-post curriculum. Data will be analyzed using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests by January 2024.
This study was granted exemption from review by the University of New Mexico Institutional Review Board.
