Tennessee Colleges Will Train Nurses for Disaster
Professors from the University of Memphis, Vanderbilt University, and Southwest Tennessee Community College will begin training nurses for the battlefield and natural disasters starting next fall, the Daily Helmsman reports.
This summer, the Department of Defense awarded a $2 million grant to these Tennessee schools to create the program, which will prepare nurses to treat the catastrophic injuries associated with natural disasters as well as chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
The professors teaching the program's coursework will do so in conjunction with the Tennessee State Guard, and training might take place at a state military base. Though the program is not yet available to students, government relations assistant Sarah Adair says she expects the program will primarily serve existing military personnel and Reserve Officer Training Corps nursing students.
But some current nursing students don't see the need for a specialized training program. "I think that the program is admirable, but nurses already know what they need to do, even in an emergency situation," says Rebekah Grimes, a sophomore nursing student. "Hospitals themselves are like a battlefield."
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Tags: Department of Defense | colleges | nurses | Vanderbilt University
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Reader Comments
sophomore nursing student quoted an as EXPERT???
No one should quote such an idiotic statement by novice student who clearly has no real idea about the real world or the real world of nursing as yet. I am a nurse of 22 years all Emergency room, flight program etc and a paramedic of over 25 years, with literally thousands of hours of specialized disaster training including 8 days in Israel with their homefront command and their hospital based disaster experts. I have recently passed the LEM Louisiana Emergency Manager credentials from the La. Emergency Preparedenss Association and I have taken my CEM exam Certified Emergency Manager (pending results) from the IAEM Internaitonal Associaiton of Emergency Managers. The young nursing student clealry DOES NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT SHE DOES NOT EVEV KNOW!!. I woudl venture to guess that whatever hospital this young nursing students goes to work in will be unprepared to protect her and all the patients and staff form the simplest chemcial cloud that is wind driven right into the air handlers of the hospital, then the textbooks might later include the history of the mass casuality hospital event for the next generation of nursing students to at elast read about. Please don't quote someone like this in matters they know nothing about.
I'll bet the VA hospitals
(the ones run by the government, you know) are not "like a battlefield" at all at the nurses' level.
And pray tell
What else would they teach nurses?
They have to be bribed to teach nurses what nurses are supposed to do?
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