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conferenceseries.com
Volume 8 Epidemiology: Open Access
ISSN: 2161-1165 Epidemiology 2018
September 17-19, 2018
September 17-19, 2018 | Rome, Italy
8th International Conference on
Epidemiology & Public Health
A disaster medicine curriculum for medical students
Ana Pinto de Oliveira and Isabel Palmeirim
University of Algarve, Portugal
Background: The many recent catastrophic natural disasters and increased terrorist attacks have focused attention on disaster
medicine. Nevertheless, gaps in undergraduate and postgraduate disaster medicine education have been note worldwide.
Following the recommendations of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine to develop standards for
training the undergraduates in disaster-relevant fields, many medical schools have begun to incorporate disaster related topics
into their curricula. In Algarve University Medical School, a Disaster Medicine course was introduced in medical curricula in
2016.
Objectives: This study evaluated the efficacy of a disaster medicine curricula recently designed for medical students in their
sixth year at Algarve University Medical School, Portugal, over the last two years.
Methods: A quantitative study was conducted in which students were asked to respond to a questionnaire using a 7-point
Likert scale (7 = strongly agree, 1 = strongly disagree) in five core questions. Survey methodology was use to evaluate increased
knowledge, clarity of content, content adjusted to needs, course duration and recommendation of the course to colleagues.
Descriptive statistics were conduct for the quantitative data of the questionnaire using SPSS Version 23.0 (SPSS, Chicago, IL).
Results: A total of 93 medical students participated in disaster medicine course, in the last 2 years. The age of the respondents
ranged from 25 to 48 years (mean 32, 6; median 32, 0). Fifty-one per cent were females. All students have a previous degree in
health-related field: 29% in nursing, 25% biomedical sciences, 20% in physiotherapy, 12% in biological sciences and 14% with
different studies. The questionnaire explored issues as “increasing knowledge about disaster medicine” that achieved a mean
score of 5.85 out of seven points. Students endorsed the idea that a training course is need with a mean score of 5.75/7 and
supported the idea that disaster medicine training should be provide to medical students (mean 6.37/7). The duration of the
course and the pedagogical component was classified with 5.0 and 6.2, respectively.
Conclusions: Disaster medicine in the medical curricula was found to be highly relevant and acceptable to the students.
Biography
Ana Pinto de Oliveira has her expertise in microbiology, public health and disaster medicine. She is a university professor of disaster medicine and humanitarian action
and for 15 years she was an assistant professor of microbiology and a researcher in microbiology field. She has done her work in epidemiology of Burkholderia cepacia in
cystic fibrosis patients and in pre-natal diagnosis (virus). Currently she is enrolled in International Health PhD, in a post graduate course of humanitarian missions, at Red
Cross School and in the residence of Public Health. The first degree is Biology with a Master degree in Microbiology.
Ana Pinto de Oliveira et al., Epidemiology (Sunnyvale) 2018, Volume 8
DOI: 10.4172/2161-1165-C1-020