Medical training for nuclear and radiological events: the "atomic age" returns

The fortuitous lack of the use of any nuclear weapons in warfare since 1945 led to a steady decline in interest and training in medical casualties from nuclear and radiological events in civilian institutions, and eventually what little training remained became the singular domain of military person...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Disaster medicine and public health preparedness 2013-10, Vol.7 (5), p.441-442
Main Author: Dallas, Cham E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anderson, Justin
Birth defects
Civil Defense - education
Congenital defects
Disaster Medicine - education
Disaster Planning - organization & administration
Education, Medical - organization & administration
Environmental management
Humans
Medicine
National security
Nuclear power plants
Nuclear reactors
Nuclear weapons
Public health
Radiation Injuries - prevention & control
Radiation Injuries - therapy
Radiation Protection - methods
Radioactive fallout
Radioactive Hazard Release - prevention & control
Training
Trauma
War
Weapons
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Summary:The fortuitous lack of the use of any nuclear weapons in warfare since 1945 led to a steady decline in interest and training in medical casualties from nuclear and radiological events in civilian institutions, and eventually what little training remained became the singular domain of military personnel. Despite the widespread expectation among the general population as well as many medical and public health personnel that radiation-induced birth defects would appear in exposed people, the scientific consensus that emerged over the decades since the Chernobyl accident is that there was no increase in congenital malformations there due to the radiation exposure 7 . [...]there is now a steadily increasing interest in the management of environmental radiation exposure casualties, and of the mass casualties resulting in the multiple casualty categories from nuclear weapon detonations: thermal burn, laceration and other trauma, radiation, and various combinations of these 8 .
ISSN:1935-7893
1938-744X
DOI:10.1017/dmp.2013.103