Collegiate Neurosurgery in Disaster and Mass Medical Emergencies: Lessons Learned from Mexico

Özet

Every year, natural or people-generated disasters disrupt the functioning of society, causing human, and material loses, which leadto an increase in the demand for medical attention. In the morning of September 19, 2017, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struckMexico City and four other cities, leaving around 19 million people affected and 331 dead. Although the medical response wastimely, most of the efforts fell short because demand exceeded responsiveness. This incident evidenced the challenges that wehave as caregivers with mass medical emergency, and the need for direct and well-structured interventions of professional-medicalassociations in the immediate response, on both in-site and in-hospital settings.The aim of this paper is to analyze how we respond to these medical emergencies and what new strategies have been proposed inorder to identify the weaknesses and areas of improvement, as well as to restructure our methods of emergency intervention. Wesearched all the information in both official institutional and social media with a public sanitary scope. We submitted this informationto a descriptive qualitative analysis and compared with official information and management. We found an important role for socialmedia as a means of communication and civil organization. Collegiate medical societies, such as neurosurgeons, showed a limitedreach, little on-site intervention, and poor use of social media and other strategies to improve the response. Finally, we propose howwe may approach these mass medical emergencies in a better way, taking advantage of new technologies and strategies.