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Medical Training for Disaster Situations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

J.-A. Baumann*
Affiliation:
Professor in the Geneva Faculty of Medicine

Extract

Medical practice in disaster relief has a very specific aspect as compared with medicine in general, but I must point out that the difference lies in its organization rather than in its therapeutic nature. A doctor who has before him a sick or wounded person, or any other patient, will unstintingly provide care according to the knowledge and training he received at medical school. He will do so in accordance with the code of ethics of his calling, inculcated by his throughout the world draw inspiration from the Hippocratic Oath, the Prayer of Maimonides or the Geneva Declaration. All of this has been accepted and need not enter the type of training which we are about to define. The same applies to nurses and to the doctor's specialized auxiliaries, who are adequately trained for their occupation, in similar yet differentiated fashion.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1973

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References

1 A Jewish physician and philosopher in 12th-century Spain. He was the type of doctor who could transcend nationality and religion, rise above the social and political conditions of the day, accept the truths of eternal philosophy and “invoke God” as all men can do.

2 A modern code established by the World Medical Association in 1948.