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Newswise Ask many Americans what anthrax is, and they probably will tell you its something dangerous associated with terrorism. Deadly anthrax bacteria are firmly in the public consciousness. <\/p>\n
Thats now. Back in 2001, however, while health professionals certainly knew what anthrax was, for most of them it was out of sight, out of mind. So when patients began showing up in the weeks after 9\/11 with black lesions on their skin, most of their physicians did not consider anthrax as a possible cause. <\/p>\n
Several doctors presumed that what they saw were spider bites, says Leonard Cole, director of the program on terror medicine and security at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Only in retrospect, when a photojournalist died after receiving anthrax in the mail, was there an understanding that other cases of anthrax-related sickness had been missed. <\/p>\n
To raise awareness among future physicians, Cole has designed a new two-week elective course called Terror Medicine. It includes sessions taught by experts in emergency medicine, surgery, psychiatry and bioterror areas of crucial importance in a medical response to a terror attack. And it presents examples of how dangerous times have forced health professionals basic instincts to change. <\/p>\n
For instance, Cole says, symptoms that might have been diagnosed in the past as simple food poisoning could actually come from exposure to a bioweapon that causes botulism, or a gardener who seems to have inhaled too much pesticide might have been exposed to the nerve gas sarin which happened in Japan in the 1990s. <\/p>\n
While chances seem small that any individual might be caught up in a gas attack, a mass shooting or a bombing, Cole says that if the worst ever happens, preparedness can mean the difference between patients living and dying. But he fears that health professionals as a group still have a long way to go before they can consider themselves truly ready. <\/p>\n
That includes having a sense ahead of time about choices that might be necessary. If a bomb goes off and a doctor is nearby, should that physician race to the victims? That sounds like a no-brainer, but maybe not, because past experience shows that a secondary bomber might be waiting to set off explosives after responders arrive compounding the toll of dead and injured. <\/p>\n
If youre an emergency room physician, you may be comfortable treating a patient with penetration injuries, or one who has a punctured lung, or someone with burns or crush wounds. But what if your patient arrives with all of those problems simultaneously, as can happen after an especially savage bombing? How do you know where to start? Determining what needs immediate attention and what can wait, a process known as triage, is crucial, and making quick, hard choices correctly can save lives in a crisis situation. <\/p>\n
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Rutgers Medical Students Learn Terror Medicine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only Newswise Ask many Americans what anthrax is, and they probably will tell you its something dangerous associated with terrorism. Deadly anthrax bacteria are firmly in the public consciousness Continue reading