News Archive
September 2009
Fall training will be starting soon.
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, calls for health professionals to consider enlisting in the Medical Reserve Corps. Watch the video.
June 2009
Good work, Whatcom MRC! The Whatcom County Medical Reserve Corps is mentioned in the national publication Pandemic Flu Preparedness: LESSONS FROM THE FRONTLINES. This is due to YOUR hard work. You all deserve credit for the great job you do representing us and helping our community.
One of the requirements to maintain our National MRC charter is that we continually update our profile on the National website with upcoming events and activities. I had reported on what we anticipated doing in response to the Novel H1N1 flu. I think what I reported has been through a couple of hands and garbled a bit. We have not developed an Alternative Care Facility (ACF.) However, Nate Haslip, the asst. MRC coordinator has been deeply involved in researching locations. In addition, we are working to increase the number of skilled, trained and prepared MRC members ready to help staff an ACF.
The final number of how many fit tests we performed are pending. We did 93 for Peace Health Medical Group (Madrona) as well as doing tests in the hospital and at one of the offices in the clock tower building.
In addition, partly as a result of the work you did for St. Joseph's, we have received a grant to spend on recruiting. If you know someone who might be a good fit for the MRC, please send them to www.WhatcomMRC.org or have them call 360-676-6724 ext. #50852.
May 2009
The American Medical Association (AMA) and the National Disaster Life Support Foundation Inc. announce the release of the Electronic Core Disaster Life Support (eCDLS) course for continuing medical education (CME) credit. Read more...
April 2009
The "2009 Integrated Training Summit Poster Presentation" information is now online.
March 2009
The WA State Region 1 Medical Reserve Corps Coalition, of which our unit is a part, has been awarded $20,000 to help support our units goals of being prepared to help in a disaster that affects our regional hospitals. Click here to learn more about this new Coalition.
February 2009
We have a new Training team. Brent Youngberg and Jared Woods have agreed to take over training planning and scheduling. Brent is a recently retired college level religion teacher with a background in family science and a fascination with emergency preparedness. Jared is an EMT and also works in Emergency Management at Western.
Coordinator, Dawnette Chadwick, along with Island County MRC Coordinator, Terry Clark, just returned from Texas where they attended a Symposium on Medical Special Needs in disasters. Emergency Management and medical providers from all over the state of Texas came together to discuss what they did well in the last hurricane season and what they need to improve before the next one. See some notes here.
January 2009
MRC members provided first aid, consulting, and triage in Operation Homeless Connect admissions area. Operation Homeless Connect is a one-day program that helps connect the homeless with community resources.