By Angela Mulholland, Staff Writer
Hospital staff and paramedics are regularly trained in how to handle a public health crisis, but new Canadian research finds that many family doctors don’t feel anywhere near as prepared.
Nicole Kain, a PhD candidate in Public Health Sciences at the University of Alberta, interviewed 16 family doctors who had worked through a public health crisis. Some of them had seen infectious disease outbreaks, such as the H1N1 flu, while others recounted natural disasters that made doing their jobs challenging.
For example, she interviewed several doctors who had worked through the Alberta floods of 2013. Many of them found their own offices or clinics flooded, which made their work challenging. Others talked about forest fires that caused huge problems for their patients with breathing problems.
Kain is in Toronto to present her findings at Public Health 2016, the annual Canadian Public Health Association conference.