Some of Long Island’s best and brightest future medical professionals put their skills to the test in intense, realistic simulations at the annual Mass Casualty Incident Day on Sept. 25 at the Nassau County Fire Service Academy in Old Bethpage.
More than 100 first-year students from the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell took part in the event, which is designed to challenge emergency medical technicians.
“Events like these allow for the opportunity for our students to learn how to be teammates, how to learn actively, and how to understand different roles,” Dr. David L. Battinelli, dean of the Zucker School, said.
Participants were presented with five unique, simulated scenarios, including a train derailment, an active-shooter situation, a bus bombing, a car accident, and a hazmat incident.
“Every situation simulated here today is based on a case study,” said Paul Wilders chief instructor at the fire service academy. “We’ve worked very hard to create a great learning environment on our campus, and make sure the [students] have gotten exposed to many different scenarios.”
In the train-derailment simulation, students were divided into teams to rescue, treat and transport the “victims,” played by classmates. With smoke billowing from inside a Long Island Rail Road car, students learned the importance of working through stressful situations.
“I think these types of training are critical for any individual, because you never know what you’re going to come across day to day,” Albert Jurkowski, a student from Queens, said. “We’ve seen incidents in the news where a tragedy could strike anywhere at any time, and by having this experience and having this skill set, any individual is able to make an impact and help their fellow people.”
In some of the simulations, students worked with members of other agencies, including the Nassau County Police Department’s Division of Homeland Security and the Nassau County Fire Service Academy, which trains the 71 fire departments across the county.
“Having the students communicate with each other, and work with us, makes an amazing scenario, because now they have to operate at a very high level of stress,” Officer Todd Atkin, of the Homeland Security Division, said. “They get muscle memory from that stress, and now they’re able to function better in stressful situations for the rest of their careers.”
The Zucker School is one of the only medical programs in the country to incorporate EMT training in its curriculum. MCI Day concludes eight weeks of that training.
“We train our students earlier than anybody else,” Battinelli said. “We thought that the idea of becoming a trained EMT in the state of New York, being able to be out in the community, was a great way to imprint our school’s philosophy.”
The training is for many students one of the most memorable phases of the curriculum, especially for those who choose to go into emergency medicine.
“I remember running into these simulations, like the bus explosion scenario, finding the secondary explosive device, and being an incident commander,” said Dr. Ryan Kenny, of Hewlett, an alumnus of the Zucker School who’s now an EMT Fellow in the New York City Fire Department. “I think [these events] really shaped me to where I am today.”
Kenny added, “Long Island is such a diverse place, so having this diverse training is imperative. This is a great first step as they’re about to embark on their careers.”
