Donna
Fowler receives TX-3 DMAT Outstanding Achievement Award at National
Conference
Donna
Fowler, R.Ph., was selected by her team members with the
TX-3 Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) as their
Member of the Year and a NDMS Outstanding Achievement
Award was presented to her on May 3, 2011 by Jack W.
Beall, Director of the National Disaster Medical System
(NDMS) for Donna's efforts on behalf of her TX-3 DMAT
team out of Galveston, Texas during the 2011 Integrated
Medical, Public Health, Preparedness and Response
Training Summit held in Grapevine, Texas. The summit is
sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services(HHS). This training summit brings together HHS
partners including the National Disaster Medical System,
the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), the Emergency System
for Advance Registration of Volunteer Health
Professionals (ESAR-VHP), and the United States Public
Health Service (USPHS). Approximately 2,300 attendees
were at this National training summit.
Donna Fowler receives TX-3 DMAT Outstanding
Achievement Award
at National Conference (Photograph
by David Marshall)
Donna Fowler who lives in
Hutto, Texas is a 1980 graduate of the University of
Texas at Austin School of Pharmacy, is a full-time staff
pharmacist at Round Rock Medical Center and is a
pharmacist member of the Texas DMAT-3 team. Donna Fowler
has been a staff pharmacist at Round Rock Medical Center
since it was first opened in 1983. Donna stated: " It is
such an honor to be selected by my peers as the 2011
Texas 3 DMAT Member of the Year and to be presented with
the NDMS Outstanding Achievement Award by Director Jack
Beall. I joined DMAT in 2002, following 9/11, as a way
of giving back to my country and I take being a DMAT
professional very seriously. To see firsthand the
devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans
and Rita on our Texas coast, to be deployed on numerous
other hurricanes and to train for future natural or
man-made disasters has been a very challenging and
rewarding commitment."
The National Disaster
Medical System is a federally coordinated system that
supplements and works with America's medical response
capability. The overall purpose of the NDMS is to
supplement an integrated National medical response
capability for assisting State and local authorities in
dealing with the medical impacts of major peacetime
disasters and to provide support to the military and the
Department of Veterans Affairs medical systems in caring
for casualties evacuated back to the U.S. from overseas
armed conventional conflicts.
The National Response
Framework utilizes the National Disaster Medical System
(NDMS), as part of the Department of Health and Human
Services, Office of Preparedness and Response, under
Emergency Support Function #8, Health and
Medical Services, to support Federal agencies in the
management and coordination of the Federal medical
response to major emergencies and federally declared
disasters including:
- Natural Disasters
- Major Transportation
Accidents
- Technological
Disasters
- Acts of Terrorism
including Weapons of Mass Destruction Events
A DMAT is a group of
professional and para-professional medical personnel
(supported by a cadre of logistical and administrative
staff) designed to provide medical care during a
disaster or other event. NDMS recruits personnel for
specific vacancies, plans for training opportunities,
and coordinates the deployment of the teams.
DMATs are designed to be a rapid-response
element to supplement local medical care until other
Federal or contract resources can be mobilized, or the
situation is resolved. DMATs deploy to disaster sites
with sufficient supplies and equipment to sustain
themselves for an initial period of 72 hours while
providing medical care at a fixed or temporary medical
care site. The personnel are activated for a period of
two weeks.
In mass casualty incidents,
their responsibilities may include triaging patients,
providing high-quality medical care despite the adverse
and austere environment often found at a disaster site,
patient reception at staging facilities and preparing
patients for evacuation.
Under the rare circumstance
that disaster victims are evacuated to a different
locale to receive definitive medical care, DMATs may be
activated to support patient reception and disposition
of patients to hospitals. DMATs are principally a
community resource available to support local, regional,
and State requirements. However, as a National resource
they can be federalized.
NDMS/DMAT personnel are
required to maintain appropriate certifications and
licensure within their discipline. When personnel are
activated as Federal employees, licensure and
certification is recognized by all States. Additionally,
DMAT personnel are paid while serving as intermittent
federal employees and have the protection of the Federal
Tort Claims Act in which the Federal Government becomes
the defendant in the event of a malpractice claim.
There are 55 DMAT teams
nationwide and generally consist of 50 to 125 members,
from which the Team Leader chooses 35 to deploy on most
missions. Only about 3,000 DMAT team members are fully
certified and ready to deploy; serving a United States
population of more than 300 million people. A wealth of
information can be found online at
http://www.hhs.gov/ about DMAT via the United States
Department of Health and Human Services website.
