World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine

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Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine, Nonprofit Organization, 3330 University Avenue, Suite 130, Madison, WI.

WADEM is a multidisciplinary professional association whose mission is the evidence-based improvement, education, and advocacy of emergency and disaster health care and disaster risk reduction.

10/13/2026

What happens when a rare virus that can spread from person to person emerges on a cruise ship carrying travelers from around the world?

A new in PDM from Dr. Aileen Marty, Dr. Kristi Koenig, and Christian Bey examines the 2026 Andes virus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius, in which 13 people fell ill across multiple countries, and three died. Andes virus is unusual among hantaviruses: unlike its relatives, it can spread through close human contact, and its early symptoms can resemble the flu, delaying recognition.

The outbreak exposed how confined travel settings, international flights, fragmented health systems, and long incubation periods can turn a local event into an international crisis. It also showed that fast action can limit spread.

For frontline clinicians, emergency responders, and public-health leaders, the message is simple: Identify, Isolate, Inform. Recognize compatible symptoms and exposure risks, promptly isolate suspected cases with appropriate precautions, and immediately notify infection-control and public-health authorities. Preparedness cannot wait for the next outbreak. Coordinated surveillance, contact tracing, clear risk communication, protective measures, and cross-border collaboration are essential to prevent a dangerous pathogen from spreading beyond what any single health system can manage.

Check out the article here: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049023X26109108.

10/12/2026

Don't miss Thursday's presentation, "Closing the Gap: Equipment Design and Performance in Environments," featuring Dr. Sara Bibbens and Prof. Monica Casmaer. Check out the details below. 👇

🗓️ Thursday, 15 October
🕗 09:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT / 18:00 CEST
🔗 Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_d9MluFlsTwWpI0dBX-GAtA

Pediatric casualties account for up to 10% of admissions at deployed military treatment facilities and up to 18% at humanitarian facilities, yet pediatric-specific civilian-standard equipment lacks key operational and trauma components, forcing providers to improvise under pressure. This session opens with an examination of the equipment gap and why pediatric readiness remains a persistent challenge in austere and operational settings. The developer of the Pediatric Emergency Disaster System (PEDS), a kit purpose-built around TCCC/TECC protocols, will then walk through its design philosophy and how it differs in content and organization.

Finally, the presenters will share results from a randomized crossover simulation study conducted during Operation Gunpowder, a multi-day field exercise at the Uniformed Services University. Third-year medical students and CRNA students (24 teams) ran standardized hemorrhage and sepsis scenarios using both systems. The operationally designed system showed significantly lower cognitive workload and frustration, higher perceived performance and confidence, and markedly better dosing accuracy than the civilian-standard system. The talk will close with operational and training implications and study limitations, including the single-institution, simulation-based design and unequal prior familiarity with the two systems.

Special thanks to Dr. Shana Godfred-Cato, Dr. Ashley Kane, and Dr. Lea Sarna Cahan for organizing.

10/09/2026

Interested in tips on writing a conference abstract? Planning to submit an abstract for ? This could be a helpful resource for you!

Check out next week's presentation from PDM's Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Jeffrey Franc!

🗓️ Friday, 16 October
🕗 09:00 PST / 12:00 EST / 18:00 CEST
🔗 Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_l5Ja9RVCQXulTHW1bXf0sw

Presentation and presenter overview:
In this webinar, presented by Prof. Jeffrey Franc, participants will learn a simple ten-step plan for creating a compelling that clearly communicates their work and captures reviewers’ attention.

Jeffrey Franc is the Editor-in-Chief of Prehospital and Disaster Medicine and has specialty training in emergency medicine, disaster medicine, sports medicine, and family medicine. He holds a master’s degree in statistics from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

He currently serves as Research Director in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Alberta, Visiting Professor with the European Master in Disaster Medicine, and adjunct faculty with the Harvard BIDMC Disaster Medicine Fellowship.

10/05/2026

Attending Convergence 2026??

If so, don't miss the pre-conference workshop, "Chemical, Radiological & Biological Threats: An Integrated CBRNe Workshop," featuring WADEM President Emeritus and Director of the Disaster Medicine Fellowship, Gregory Ciottone, MD. This workshop features a top-notch faculty, including Amalia Voskanyan, RN; Fadi Issa, MD, MScDM; Shane B. Kappler, MD; and David DiGregorio, MPAS, MSEM.

The workshop will take place from 14:00-17:00 on 3 November.

Workshop Overview:
This workshop equips physicians, nurses, , hospital emergency managers, and public health responders to recognize and manage the three CBRNe categories most likely to overwhelm a community response system: industrial/intentional chemical releases, radiological/nuclear exposures, and natural/engineered biological agents. Each threat module is built around a realistic mass-casualty scenario and
closes with a unified approach to multi-hazard hybrid decontamination.

Learning Objectives:
• Rapidly recognize toxidromic patterns to drive early, life-saving treatment decisions before an agent is confirmed.
• Apply agent-specific preparedness and response protocols across chemical, radiological, and biological release scenarios.
• Coordinate containment, hashtag , surge, and risk-communication decisions across clinical, public health, and government stakeholders.
• Integrate hybrid decontamination principles that hold across chemical, radiological, and biological contaminants in a single incident.

For more information, please visit: www.cbrneworld.com/knoxville26.

10/02/2026

The WADEM Students and Young Professionals Special Interest Group (SYP-SIG) invites you to participate in an upcoming presentation on Thursday, 15 October at 14:00 PDT / 17:00 EDT / 22:00 BST featuring Dr. Sharon Shaul discussing in international and local !

Dr. Shaul is an emergency medicine physician and head of the Medical Sector of NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief. She has deployed to numerous disasters all across the globe, including the recent in .

Dr. Shaul will discuss lessons she has learned about working with and integrating into international and local teams during crises. This is sure to be a great talk, with insights you can hopefully take back to your communities. Register for the event here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/JjaJQPwATsWAK8ZyIUGNaw #/registration.

09/25/2026

New Structured Review in PDM!

When a mass-casualty incident overwhelms responders, triage tools help decide who needs life-saving care first. To know whether these tools work, researchers compare their decisions against a “reference standard”—a definition of who truly counts as a critical casualty. But if studies define “critical” differently, their results may not be fairly compared.

The authors reviewed 60 sources published between 2001 and 2025 and found five broad approaches to defining the critical casualty: need for life-saving interventions, combined or hybrid criteria, expert judgment, patient outcomes or resource use, and anatomical injury severity. The first two approaches accounted for about two-thirds of the field. Strikingly, only five sources analyzed data from actual mass-casualty incidents; most evidence came from trauma registries, simulations, and drills.

Studies almost always stated what their reference standard was, but far less often explained how it was applied: only 40% specified the time window for counting outcomes, while the handling of deaths, missing data, and reference-standard limitations was reported inconsistently.

The authors developed an eight-item reporting index—the Reference Standard Reporting Index for Mass-Casualty Incident Triage (RSRI-MCI)—and proposed five practical recommendations to make future triage research more transparent, reproducible, and comparable.

Read the article here: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049023X2610908X.

09/22/2026

Convergence.... Where responders, military, and experts prepare for what’s next. CBRNe Convergence is heading back to Knoxville, the home of the R in CBRNe, right on the doorstep of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex.

Convergence 2026 brings together experts, practitioners, researchers, and providers from across the emergency community.

From 3-5 November 2026, at the Knoxville Convention Center, you will find an abundance of amazing speakers and fantastic exhibitors.

Attendance will provide insight into:
- Emerging and evolving incident scenarios
- New response techniques, procedures, and equipment
- Lessons learned from real-world incidents
- Best practices for improving command, control, and

Convergence brings you everything you could want from a conference:
- Access to global experts
- Cross-sector hashtag
- Practical takeaways you can use immediately

Learn more here: https://cbrneworld.com/events/cbrne-convergence-knoxville-2026.

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09/15/2026

🎫 Upcoming webinar: "How the Centre for Events & (CEF) is Helping to Professionalize the Events Industry and Why that Matters for " 🚑

🗓️ 30 September
🕔 05:00 EDT / 10:00 BST / 19:00 AEST
🔗 https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LJNPn_l5SFqMJ2Tvv-5cNQ

In this presentation, Mike Duignan, PhD, will introduce the Centre for Events & Festivals (CEF)'s work across professional development, recognition, research and insights, events, and advocacy – working internationally across all event types – to build a more skilled, accountable, and resilient events industry. As the sector responsible for convening millions of people in shared spaces, the events industry sits at the intersection of , , and .

Yet, looking internationally, the sector has not always had the professional infrastructure to match that responsibility. CEF is addressing this gap through a coordinated, global effort to raise standards, develop competency frameworks, and connect practitioners with the knowledge and networks they need to operate safely and effectively. For the mass gatherings community, a more professionalized events industry means stronger partnerships, earlier integration, and better outcomes for the people who attend events worldwide.

Many thanks to Prof. Ally Hutton and Caren Friend for helping to organize this talk!

09/14/2026

Don't miss the September Lecture Series from the University of Massachusetts Disaster Medicine and Emergency Management Fellowship Program, in partnership with the WADEM affiliate, the National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health (NCDMPH), and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), on 15 September, 13:00-15:00 EDT.

Featured Presentations:
"Hospitals and Cyber/Water Threats" presented by Joshua Corman, Executive In-Residence for Public Safety & Resilience at the Institute for Security and Technology and Founder of "I am the Cavalry", a Global Grassroots Initiative Focused on Digital Security

"TECC in CBRN conditions" presented by Dr. Frank van Trimpont, Chair of the European Chapter of WADEM, President of the European Council of Disaster Medicine, President of Counter-Terrorism Medicine Europe, Researcher, Université Libre de Bruxelles

This session will equip participants with practical approaches to improve preparedness, strengthen coordination, and apply these concepts in clinical, operational, educational, and leadership settings.

Who can attend? Everyone is welcome!

An American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) account is required to watch the presentation and to claim CME credits. Please note that a paid ACEP membership is NOT required.

How To Enroll:
1. Follow this link (https://learn.acep.org/cw/course-details?entryId=19029164&itemId=800444)
2. If you don't have an ACEP account, create a free one.
3. Click "Launch" below and open the Zoom registration window.
4. Close the window.
5. You will find this webinar under your "My Enrollments" and receive an email.
6. You can join at the time of the event from your email or from this course page.

CME Accreditation: The CME offered is AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ and is specifically designed for doctors. While anyone can attend the webinar and claim the CME, attendees will be responsible for providing the CME information to their respective licensing boards for approval.

09/02/2026

🗓️ Two months to go! Share your research, reports, reviews, or proposals! 🚨

WADEM invites abstract submissions for the 24th Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine taking place in Paris, France, from 26 to 30 April 2027.

The congress theme is: , Relevance, : Enhancing performance in and emergency medicine for communities, , and .

Submissions are encouraged across 14 categories that represent a wide range of themes related to disaster medicine, care, and the health aspects of emergency management and complex crises.

Select abstracts presented at the congress will be published in an online supplement to WADEM’s journal, Prehospital and Disaster Medicine (PDM), on Cambridge Core. Abstracts must have a proper determination to be published in PDM. The deadline to submit an abstract is 23:59 (CST - North America) on 1 November.

For more information, please visit: https://wadem.org/congress/paris-2027/call-for-abstracts/.

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