This policy paper presents a national program for the training and placement of health professions students, particularly medical students, for disaster scenarios. The program was developed at the Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Research at the Technion, in response to a request by the Ministry of Health to the Forum of Medical School Deans and on its behalf, in collaboration with the Technion Faculty of Medicine, representatives of other medical faculties, and in consultation with emergency authorities and medical student associations.
Israel has approximately 5,000 medical students, representing a substantial potential resource for augmenting the national medical emergency response in disaster situations. Currently, these students are not integrated into the national emergency medical framework, in contrast to nursing students. This document proposes a comprehensive framework that includes a spiral training program spanning all years of study, a voluntary placement mechanism leveraging existing medical student association infrastructures, and implementation recommendations for medical faculties and the Ministry of Health.
The training program comprises four core components: (1) systemic understanding and awareness of disaster settings; (2) acquisition of emergency knowledge and practical skills; (3) development of resilience, leadership and competence; and (4) hospital based, role specific training. The placement framework builds upon the existing communication networks of the medical student associations, coordinated by faculty level emergency coordinators and a national-level coordinator representing the Israeli Medical Students Association, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health’s Emergency Division.
