W. Fred Miser, MD

“The threat of terrorism on American land became reality after Sept. 11, 2001,” said Dr. Fred Miser, a family medicine physician at Ohio State and leader of the project. “The ultimate goal of this project is to prepare and equip a work force of health care professionals to address the medical consequences of bioterrorism and other public health emergency preparedness and response issues.”

Under the grant, Ohio State and the three other participating universities have established the Ohio Center of Excellence in Education for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response. The center will function as the entity through which related curriculum in medicine, nursing, public health and allied health professions will be developed and eventually distributed across the state and nationwide.

“In addition to providing training that reflects the times in which we live, this educational effort also will bolster existing response plans by tapping students as potential response volunteers and as an expanded ‘surveillance network,’ if you will, of individuals skilled in recognizing potential population exposures to dangerous agents,” Miser said.

The other participating schools are Ohio University, the University of Cincinnati and the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, which, combined with Ohio State, enroll more than 3,500 students in health care disciplines annually and provide care to almost 75 percent of Ohio’s population.

The curriculum will focus on four areas of expertise in which students will be trained: recognizing indicators of a terrorist event or other public health emergency; safely meeting acute care needs of patients; rapidly and effectively alerting the public health system of such an emergency; and participating in a multidisciplinary coordinated response. Additionally, the training will cover the most common potential biological and chemical agents that could be used in a terrorist attack.

The curriculum, to be developed after a complete assessment of existing bioterrorism preparedness material being taught throughout the state, will combine classroom instruction, distance learning and a hands-on clinical skills laboratory and will be based on a case study approach to emergency scenarios. 2md :: Medical Multimedia Design in the new OSUMC Center for Knowledge Management will assist in the development of the technology-enhancement of the curriculum. Organizers hope to begin piloting the curriculum in stages next fall and to integrate the finalized material into required curriculum by July 2005.

The complex project involves numerous faculty and administrators at each institution as well as a host of staff supporting the technology required to manage and distribute the curriculum. Miser and project co-director Dr. Leon McDougle, also an OSU family medicine physician, have drawn on past military experience in designing the program. Miser has served as a military physician and retired as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Army, and McDougle received specialized emergency response training while a physician on active duty with the U.S. Navy.

The Ohio project, which received more than $858,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services, was one of 12 grants supporting curriculum development in bioterrorism funded by the HHS Health Resources and Service Administration in 2003.