October 4, 2001
Time to prepare for the unthinkable, say AAFP leaders, Congress
BY CINDY MCCANSE
Responding to the grim reality of September's terrorist attacks, AAFP leaders this week challenged the Congress of Delegates to act definitively to carve out a new role for family physicians in national disaster planning and response.
"We can no longer exclude ourselves from this process," said President-elect Warren Jones, M.D., of Ridgeland, Miss., in his address to the Congress. "Family physicians must be involved in the execution of community-based, mass casualty disaster response and chemical and biological agent surveillance."
Jones recommended a three-pronged approach:
- collaborate with other family medicine organizations to develop a core set of knowledge, skill and ability levels for FPs in casualty management, disaster response, and surveillance for signs of chemical or biological agent exposure;
- encourage regular inclusion of these elements in family practice residency curricula and CME activities; and
- work with constituent chapters and other agencies to promote development of roles for FPs in disaster response plans.
Jones' recommendations now go to the Board.
A STRONG BEGINNING
The groundwork for such a comprehensive initiative has been laid. CME activities on bioterrorism have for the past few years been offered at the Assembly and other Academy meetings and through AAFP's Home Study program. Since 1999, Academy publications have provided members with information about disaster preparedness and response at the local and national levels. And the Commis-sion on Public Health last month called for the creation of a Board report to the Congress addressing the very issues Jones raised.
That report, filed for information Wednesday by the Congress, outlines both short- and long-term strategies to bring AAFP members up to speed on bioterrorism and to give them a voice in national policy-making and planning processes.
Obviously, a key component of fostering FPs' ability to respond to bioterrorism will be CME programming to familiarize them with the likely causative agents and treatment options. Delegates called for just that on Wednesday, when they adopted Substitute Resolution No. 606.
"It's critical to realize that it's family physicians who'll be the first to notice something unusual is going on," said Texas delegate Tim Lambert, M.D., of Garland. "Because no one's going to dump something in the water and announce it. So it's very important for family doctors to be hy-pervigilant for this sort of event."
PROTECTING KEY RESOURCES
In an interesting twist, Alaska delegate John Cullen, M.D., of Valdez proposed a related amend- ment to Substitute Resolution No. 403 from the Public Health and Science Reference Commit-tee, which dealt with general vaccine availability. He called on the AAFP to investigate ways to make appropriate vaccines available to those exposed to bioterroristic agents. The resolution was adopted as amended.
FPs themselves, of course, need to be high on that vaccination list. Mary Morrow, M.D., of College Station, Texas, a delegate from the Women Physician Constituency, explained why in the simplest of terms: "I work in the ER now, and that's where people are going to come in saying 'What are these spots all over me?' I don't want to bring home smallpox to my kids." *
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2001 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
FP Report | October 4 Headlines |AAFP Home | Search