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Doctors tell Katrina stories in NEJM essays

Physician Practice Advisor, October 19, 2005

Doctors tell how they survived Hurricane Katrina in a series of essays published in the October 13 New England Journal of Medicine. The essays describe chaos in New Orleans and how doctors confronted the logistical and medical problems of serving thousands of refugees.

The doctors tell how they provided care to patients without benefit of laboratory tests, radiology services, and the ability to confer with specialists. Triaging thousands of people with limited help was also a major problem. To obtain the proper supplies, some doctors were forced to enter looted drug stores while police escorts kept looters at bay.

"When dawn broke on Tuesday, August 30, it was clear that everything was completely different," writes Gregory S. Henderson, M.D., Ph.D. "I looked out the window to discover that the hotel was surrounded by three to five feet of water, and there was water filling most of Canal Street. I knew we were in for a medical crisis and that leaving was out of the question: real soldiers don't run from fighting, and real doctors don't run from sick people."

Click here to read the NEJM essays.

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