Excerpt from Emergency Short-term Health Relief

Synonyms, Key Words, and Related Terms: short-term health relief, emergency health relief, disaster relief teams, international emergency medicine, health care in underdeveloped countries, health care in underdeveloped nations, humanitarian relief teams

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The need for accessible and affordable health care for everyone is well recognized. While most countries have health care delivery systems, these systems are often not adequate to meet the actual need. The medical needs of the majority of the world's inhabitants are underserved. In many less developed nations, the infant mortality rate is much higher than in the West. Concurrently, significant morbidity and mortality are caused by infectious diseases and by levels of malnutrition rarely observed in developed countries.

Regardless of the level of development, most countries have well-trained health professionals. However, the number of physicians is frequently inadequate to deliver quality healthcare to everyone with a need. To help meet these shortages, physicians from almost every developed nation provide short-term healthcare relief in virtually every country around the world. Trained professionals serve many needs, including teaching public health and clinical courses, designing emergency medical services (EMS) programs, and providing direct patient care. Public health initiatives have been especially helpful in dealing with long-term, ongoing issues such as childhood immunizations and water purification. Additionally, natural and other disasters place burdens on nations' healthcare needs that those nations frequently cannot meet.

Interest among American emergency physicians in providing short-term relief is significant. Many emergency physicians have already participated in professional activities overseas (eg, working on disaster relief teams). This interest is manifested in the growth of organizations involved in international emergency medicine, such as the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine's International Interest Group and the new Section of International Emergency Medicine of the American College of Emergency Medicine.

Events such as the 2005 Katrina and Rita hurricanes in the US Gulf area focused attention on the need for short-term care within our own nation. This article briefly discusses many of the facets of short-term overseas involvement for American emergency physicians