Need for continual education about disaster medicine for health professionals in China-a pilot study

A survey was conducted among 324 health professionals who participated in the response to the Wenchuan earthquake medical relief and public health assessment in October, 2008.The most of participants (67.3%) received informal disaster medicine training, and only a few (12.7%) participated in disaster drills. Most of the participants wanted to get continual education about disaster medicine training (89.8%), but prefer on-line training course for the flexibility of time scheduling and travel through China.The need for continual disaster medicine training is high; health professionals should be equipped with knowledge and skills for disaster management.China is one of the countries most affected by natural disasters; it is an important restricting factor for economic and social development [1-3]. The deadliest natural disaster in two recent decades was the Sichuan Wenchuan earthquake on 12 May 2008 - the death toll was 88,928. Additionally, floods continue to be the major mode of natural disasters in China [1,4,5].Disaster Medicine (DM) is not included in medical education curriculum in China, even though the country suffers various disasters every year [6,7]. The Chinese Medical Association (CMA) is the largest medical organization in China, and it plays a leading and active role in the nation's medical education and professional training [8,9]. It organizes continual medical education for licensed clinical and public health doctors, and participants receive credit which is a part of physicians' annual assessment. Every doctor needs to obtain certain credits for annual qualification, however, most training is focused on clinical medicine, while public health training and disaster medicine training are overlooked. After the SARS epidemic in 2003 and Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008, public health emergency and disaster medicine training have received increasing attention [10-12].In this study we intended to assess the need for continual education regarding disaster managem