Fundamental Disaster Management Course

Fundamental Disaster Management (FDM) prepares healthcare professionals to treat victims of natural or manmade mass casualty events. It arms critical care professionals with the expertise to manage the critical care response to large-scale disasters. This one day course focuses on critically ill patients who are admitted to your hospital and is a must for healthcare providers who may come in contact with critically ill and/or injured patients after a mass casualty event.

After participating in the FDM course, participants should be able to:

• Identify the core structure and functions of disaster incident management and describe how the critical care response is coordinated by the interfaces with incident managers.

• List the types of events that are most likely to require a critical care response and describe the anticipated critical care needs of the affected people.

• Explain the significant changes in organization, staffing, and responsibility that may improve the provision of critical care during a mass casualty.

 • Describe the guiding principle for triage and allocation of scarce critical care resources during a disaster.

 • Demonstrate how to setup and troubleshoot alternative positive pressure ventilation equipment such as the mechanical ventilators maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Strategic National Stockpile.

 • Recognize the emergency situations that require use of personal protective equipment (PPE) or environmental controls while caring for critically ill victims.

The FDM course includes a combination of didactic sessions and skill stations and can be offered as an independent course or as an add-on module to the FCCS course. 

Target Audience:
 
Critical care health professionals including pharmacists, respiratory care professionals, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and physicians.

Also, persons who have successfully completed Society of Critical Care Medicine's Fundamental Critical Care Support (FCCS) course and who are expected to have significant critical care responsibilities during an emergency.

Participants who successfully complete the required provider or instructor course receive a certificate of successful completion, and are referred to as FDM Trained.*

For details regarding the Society of Critical Care Medicine's response to the H1N1 (Swine flu) outbreak, please visit our Disaster Resources page