Disaster response: The University of Texas School of Nursing experience

Abstract

Nurses comprise the largest group of health-care providers and should be key partners for any disaster response in their community. An often untapped resource in many communities is the contingent of nurse faculty, staff and students in schools of nursing across the country. In an effort to provide guidance on how schools and colleges of nursing link with their community and provide real-world experience for students, the present paper: (i) outlines how a Memorandum of Cooperation between the City of Austin and the University of Texas at Austin was created; and (ii) describes an example of how a school of nursing could become organized to respond to a community's call for help.

An exploration of perceptions of disaster nursing and disaster preparedness among Australian nursing undergraduates

“…This finding is supported within the literature, with several studies reporting similar findings (Chan et al, 2010;Pattillo & O'Day, 2009;Schmidt et al, 2011;Yonge, Rosychuk, Bailey, Lake, & Marrie, 2010). Participants in this study felt that they had a moral obligation to contribute, were aware that they may need to extend their scope of practice, and wanted the reassurance of strong leadership and supervision to guide their efforts during a response.…”

“…These agreements require clear articulation of the circumstances and conditions under which nursing undergraduates would provide care, including scope of practice, lines of supervision and clarification of legal issues relating to unqualified persons providing care. These requirements are well described in papers by Pattillo and O'Day (2009) and Cusack et al (2010).…”

“…Participants in this study felt that they had a moral obligation to contribute, were aware that they may need to extend their scope of practice, and wanted the reassurance of strong leadership and supervision to guide their efforts during a response. These are all factors that have been recognized in previous studies (Cusack et al, 2010;Pattillo & O'Day, 2009;Schmidt et al, 2011;Yonge et al, 2010).…”

Resilience of nursing students during World War II

“…Schools of Nursing in Mississippi and Texas used student nurses to provide disaster relief following Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Ike (Pattillo & O'Day, 2009;Richards, Novak, & Davis, 2009). In both situations, faculty replaced the students' usual clinical experiences with disaster relief experiences.…”

Perception and Core Competencies of Disaster Nursing in South Korea

“…), mass casualty care, communication, systematization, coordination issues, triage process, psychological issues pertinent in disaster situations, overall role of nurses, role of leadership, assessment of health needs, utilization of personnel and resources and evaluation of provided nursing care and services [7,8]. Numerous studies have mentioned the need for education and training regarding the nurse's own field to care for patients during disaster events that are rarely encountered in the usual practice [9][10][11][12] and countries that have experienced disasters such as the United States and India recognized the severity of the problem and organized discussions and workshops regarding nurse education [13][14][15]. Meanwhile, researches in South Korea are mainly focused on the field of emergency medicine in the response phase during the occurrence of a disaster, and the administrative approach for the maintenance of a disaster management system [16][17][18].…”