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San Francisco: Departments

Emergency Medicine
Early in the Korean conflict, it became evident that many young physicians called into service were not adequately prepared to practice under austere military conditions, notably in the handling of mass casualties. Their motivation and morale suffered in consequence. The then existing medical ROTC program, which emphasized military organization and administration, had proved inadequate because of its approach and because few students evinced any interest in it. A joint committee of the American Medical Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges developed the concept of the Medical Education for National Defense program (MEND) which was to concentrate on education in disaster medicine and the handling of mass casualties.

MEND was started as a pilot program in five medical schools, including the University's School of Medicine at San Francisco, in the fall of 1952. The program demonstrated its worth in the first year, leading to discontinuance of the medical ROTC program. In addition, the MEND program was gradually started at other medical schools so that later it existed in all 87 schools of medicine in the United States. The program was jointly financed by the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Public Health Service. The services also conducted scientific symposia and courses for faculty members of the participating schools.

The MEND program was administered at this school by the Division of Emergency Medicine, which came into being for that purpose in the fall of 1954. The curricular emphasis was in three major areas. First was the handling of mass casualties, sorting and transportation of the wounded, bandaging and splinting, and the legal implications of a physician rendering service in a natural disaster. The second emphasis was on the control of infectious diseases in disasters, biological warfare, and the important tropical diseases which were rarely or never seen in the continental United States. The third feature of the curriculum was a thorough grounding in radiobiology, including the application of radioisotopes to biology and medicine, both in the laboratory, and clinically, on the hospital ward. source

Epidemiology and Biostatistics
There is no history currently available for this department.

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