Should the ICS be commanded by a public health official?

A substantive comment should be approximately 300 words or more for each response (A total of 4 responses).

Read the initial comments posted by your classmates and reflect upon them.

Before writing your comments:

Review the Discussion grading rubric to see what is expected for an excellent discussion, in order to earn full credit.

Review some resources to help you synthesize, such as the following:

Sullivan, J. (2011). Strategies for Synthesis Writing. Retrieved from http://www.findingdulcinea.com/features/edu/Strategies-for-Synthesis-Writing.html

NOTE: You are required to cite sources and include a reference list for the second post if it is simply your opinion. However, if your opinion is based on facts (as it should be), it is good practice to strengthen your position by citing sources.

Be sure to meet all of the criteria in the rubric, as noted in the instructions above.

Third post for each module discussion:

Read the initial and secondary comments posted by your classmates and reflect upon them.

Directly respond to at least one classmate in a way that extends meaningful discussions, adds new information, and/or offers alternative perspectives.

MY POST

Classmates and Professor,

Question 1.

In such cases, should the ICS be commanded by a public health official/EMS Chief/MD rather than the police and fire units?

When emergency medical personnel are called up to transport patients who could easily spread infectious diseases, they should be extremely careful. They should be donned with personal protective equipment, and they should have their mouth and nose covered so that they may not be infected by the various diseases that the patients are suffering from(Nizolenko & Bachinsky, 2014). Emergency medical personnel should be allowed to lead or command a station where the bioterrorist attack has occurred, and people are badly injured. They should be allowed to lead the evacuation process while the police offer security to them and the patients. Bioterrorism uses biology to manufacture a disease that terrorists can use to attack people for their own political and financial gain. It is a disease manufactured in the laboratory and used to attack people, and it is used as an act of terrorism.

Some of the diseases that can be manufactured and released to people are Anthrax and Smallpox. These diseases take some days before the patients become ill, and therefore, the affected people may not need transport to the hospital(Aschenbrenner, 2018). Instead, they will most likely walk into the hospital when they find that they have symptoms of these diseases. When they get into the hospitals, they are treated by receiving vaccines or antibiotics, and the emergency medical personnel treats them.

Question 2

To what extent should non-medical personnel/managers make medical decisions during a bioterrorist incident?

Non-medical personnel can take the lead in an operation when the terrorist attack has no injuries, and the damage that a terrorist attack has done does not involve people. For example, if the target was on a building and there are no injuries reported, the police or other professionals who handle crime can be trusted to lead in investigating the incident; when the attack involves weaponry that the medical personnel cannot understand, then it the work of the police to call in ballistics who have knowledge and skills in the weapons so that they can determine how to handle the situation (Grundmann, 2014). On the bioterrorist, if the attack involves the use of chemicals that the medical personnel is unable to understand, the experts should be called in to determine the kind of chemicals that have been used. Should the ICS be commanded by a public health official?

Emergency medical personnel may not lead the investigations when the attack involves diplomacy of two or more countries. The experts in the ministry of foreign affairs should lead the process of building talks between countries affected to reach an amicable solution (Green et al., 2019). If a country attacks another country, then the discussions cease to be local and become international where serious talks should be held between those two countries. If the two cannot reach a consensus, then bodies such as United Nations may lead the talk to bring the two fighting countries into a consensus. In a nutshell, medical personnel should lead post in case of a bioterrorist attack, and there are other times that the police or the ministry concerned should lead the investigations.

Pedro

References

Aschenbrenner, D. (2018). Drug Approved to Treat Smallpox After a Bioterrorist Attack. AJN, American Journal Of Nursing, 118(11), 21. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.naj.0000547660.47166.0f

Grundmann, O. (2014). The current state of bioterrorist attack surveillance and preparedness in the US. Risk Management And Healthcare Policy, 177. https://doi.org/10.2147/rmhp.s56047

Green, M., LeDuc, J., Cohen, D., & Franz, D. (2019). Confronting the threat of bioterrorism: realities, challenges, and defensive strategies. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 19(1), e2-e13. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1473-3099(18)30298-6

Nizolenko, L., & Bachinsky, A. (2014). Universal Local Epidemic Model and Its Usage in the Assessment of Novosibirsk Region Resource Preparedness to a Bioterrorist Attack. Problems Of Particularly Dangerous Infections, (4), 21-24. https://doi.org/10.21055/0370-1069-2014-4-21-24

RESPONSE 1:

PROFESSOR’S QUESTION:

Can you think of any potential issues created by the medical personnel not having a leadership role?