Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism:
Medical Response to Mass Casualties

Privacy/Security Notice

Version

Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism: Medical Response to Mass Casualties,” in CD-ROM and Web versions, was released on April 15, 2006.

Program Purpose

The purpose of this training is to prepare clinicians in first receiver settings to: (1) Identify factors impacting immediate medical response to mass casualties following major types of radiological incidents, and (2) Demonstrate appropriate patient assessment, triage, treatment and disposition decision-making required during a radiological mass casualty incident.

Learning Objectives

After completing this training activity, you will be able to:

1. Describe the immediate health effects of potential radiological terrorism incidents likely to result in mass casualties.
2. Discuss the major considerations impacting emergency response planning for a radiological terrorism incident involving mass casualties.
3. Describe the major considerations impacting establishment of mass decontamination systems following a radiological terrorism incident.
4. Identify the key principles involving triage of patients with potential radiation injury (Acute Radiation Syndrome).
5. Describe the key components of treating patients with combined injury (trauma and radiation injury).
6. Describe the key components of treating patients with atraumatic irradiation (radiation without traumatic injury).
7. Identify the major pharmacological agents used to treat patients with radiological injury following a mass casualty radiological terrorism incident.

Time

You should allow approximately two hours to complete this activity. The actual time you spend will depend on how much of the supplementary material, in the Resources section, you review.

Audience

The intended audience for this training are MDs and RNs in the emergency departments of first-receiver settings.

Prerequisites

As a prerequisite for this training, you should have basic knowledge of emergency preparedness and general trauma resuscitation knowledge comparable to that required to work professionally in emergency services care delivery.

In addition, some introductory knowledge regarding medical response to radiological terrorism is recommended, comparable to that provided previously by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a training on Medical Response to Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism

Contact Us

Please contact CDC with questions and comments about this training:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1-800-CDC-INFO (800-232-4636); TTY: (888-232-6348)

Additional complimentary copies of the CD-ROM can be requested.

Disclosure Statements

CDC, our planners, and our presenters wish to disclose they have no financial interests or other relationships with the manufacturers of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services, or commercial supporters. Presentations will not include any discussion of the unlabeled use of a product or a product under investigational use with the exception of Dr. Jeffrey Nemhauser’s discussion on Pharmacotherapy. He will be discussing filgrastim.

Additional Statements

This training was produced under contract number AC05-06OR23100. The producing contractors are the U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge Associated Universities. The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) is a U.S. Department of Energy institute focusing on scientific initiatives to research health risks from occupational hazards, assess environmental cleanup, respond to radiation medical emergencies, support national security and emergency preparedness, and educate the next generation of scientists. ORISE is managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities.