Michael Petrie reflects on the impact of Luke Hodgson’s Homeland Security Affairs article “How Violent Attacks Are Changing the Demands of Mass Casualty Incidents: A Review of The Challenges Associated with Intentional Mass Casualty Incidents”

Luke Hodgson’s article “How Violent Attacks Are Changing the Demands of Mass Casualty Incidents: A Review of The Challenges Associated with Intentional Mass Casualty Incidents” is an important contribution to the development of homeland security as a profession because it validates that complex home...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Homeland security affairs 2021-01
Main Author: Petrie, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Best practice
Emergency management
Emergency preparedness
International relations
Mass casualty incidents
National security
Professions
Research methodology
Research methods
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Summary:Luke Hodgson’s article “How Violent Attacks Are Changing the Demands of Mass Casualty Incidents: A Review of The Challenges Associated with Intentional Mass Casualty Incidents” is an important contribution to the development of homeland security as a profession because it validates that complex homeland security challenges, such as responding to mass casualty incidents (MCIs), can be effectively evaluated and solved by practitioner-academics; those who work in homeland security professions and receive academic training in homeland security and defense and research methods.1 Hodgson’s article identifies the operational and clinical challenges associated with responding to more lethal, more complex, and often deliberate mass casualty incidents, which are characterized by rescuers requiring force protection, multi-agency and multi-disciplinary scene and system management, widely used but flawed triage systems, and obsolete concepts of operations. Hodgson evaluates best practices in the domestic and international models of MCI management and uses evidence to argue convincingly that in today’s dynamic homeland security operating environment, the response to mass casualty incidents, especially deliberate incidents, requires new concepts of operation, clinically validated triage systems, and comprehensive multidisciplinary coordination at the scene and within the EMS system. Mr. Petrie served on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley as the Director of the CIDER Emergency Management Sciences Program, and at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS), where he continues to serve as a thesis adviser.
ISSN:1558-643X