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BCMS
COMMITTEES

Dr. Lloyd Van Winkle volunteers his time helping Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

BCMS Emergency Preparedness Committee

The Bexar County Medical Society Emergency Preparedness will allow for a ready source of information that physician offices
Committee works in conjunction with the San Antonio Metro- can rapidly assimilate in order to make decisions about how or if
politan Health District (SAMHD) and with other San Antonio to participate in various disaster/terrorist situations when the time
medical and emergency organizations to coordinate physician vol- comes and to have a template to prepare for a pandemic flu
unteers for significant, but unexpected, emergency situations af- episode.
fecting the community.
The Committee meets six times per year and considers strategies
As a physician, regardless of specialty, you and your practice to ensure staff resources and society processes are sufficiently or-
will be affected by any disaster impacting the community. The ganized to respond when the need arises. There are also additional
San Antonio area is vulnerable to natural disasters, especially tor- opportunities to meet and participate with the other local planning
nadoes, floods and hurricanes, as well as to physically destructive committees and organizations such as the SAMHD, the Medical
man-made events such as air or rail crashes, chemical releases, ra- Volunteer Coordinating Committee (MVCC), Southwest Texas
diological emergencies and infectious disease outbreaks. Each of Regional Advisory Council (STRAC), as well as others.
these would require somewhat different responses. However, San
Antonio is also a major hub for receiving evacuees from disasters The Committee develops a list of volunteers to contact when
elsewhere in our region. the need arises and also provides Incident Command System
(ICS) ICS-100, 200, 700 training. These courses are available
The focus of the Committee includes organizational efforts to free online at http://bcms.org/committees/EmergPrep.html.
prepare for hurricane evacuations to Bexar County from various
Texas coastal areas. The committee has also worked to create more As a volunteer, you have the right to say “yes” or “no” to any
detailed information on physician office preparation for pan- requests for your services. You also have the right to decide how
demic flu and a variety of terrorist scenarios that also could occur far you are willing to travel and how long you are willing to serve.
in Bexar County. It is anticipated that Committee preparation If you would like to sign up to be a potential volunteer, call
Melody Newsom at 210-301-4363 or email bcms@bcms.org.

34 San Antonio Medicine • October 2015