Physician Practice

Worker wellness: Severe summer weather

Medical Environment Update, May 16, 2020

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by John Palmer

The calendar has turned to May, and if we’re lucky, Mother Nature will give us a reprieve from the coronavirus outbreak and turn to other things on her agenda—like turning up the heat and moving on to the summer months.

Of course, one of the downsides of summer in many parts of the country is the increased risk of severe weather. In every part of the U.S., hot weather can pose a real risk to the well-being of anyone who isn’t ready for it. Severe thunderstorms can happen anywhere, and the worst of them can spawn tornadoes that can develop into community-devouring monsters within minutes, like the Nashville event in March. If your clinic is located in one of these places, you need to know when to evacuate.

Flooding is another potentially life-threatening disaster for many communities, and in severely dry areas of the country, wildfires are increasingly becoming a problem, even in cities once considered protected from fire dangers.

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