In Tohoku, the northeastern part of the main island of Japan, students entered medical school following the Great East Japan earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011. Such students wished to volunteer at the time of disaster, however, the undergraduate medical curriculum was inadequate to enable the practice of disaster medicine. Thus, the Tohoku Disaster Medical Assistance Student (DMAS) holds workshops for undergraduate students to acquire disaster medicine knowledge.

Tohoku DMAS offers Peer Learning Education. In the DMAS course, students learned disaster medicine through lectures and simulations under the supervision of disaster medicine experts. The workshops vary in length between 3–8 hours. Tohoku DMAS’s goal is to support disaster management headquarters and shelters. Students are expected to provide logistical support that includes recounting the chronology of events at disaster management headquarters and helping with managing evacuation shelters.

According to the activity reports and roster of the course, there were only three students initially when the course was formed in 2018, however, the group continued to grow, and 165 students currently belong to the Tohoku DMAS. Those students include medical students, nursing students, and paramedics students at various universities and colleges. The DMAS has held 30 training sessions since 2018. The total number of training participants was 1,308. The DMAS has held tabletop simulation exercises and lectures on various topics such as shelter management, disaster triage, and nuclear disasters. Furthermore, some members have participated in emergency drills for each prefecture. The current challenge of the program was obtaining adequate insurance coverage for students and financial support during the activity at the disaster scene.

The DMAS plays a role in disaster medicine education for undergraduate medical students in the Tohoku region. The program continues to grow and faces opportunities and challenges.