title: Potential nuclear and radiological incidents: a summary for clinicians.
abstract: Most clinicians will go their entire career without seeing a patient who has been involved in a nuclear or radiological incident, and many health care professionals feel ill equipped to respond to such incidents. To add to this difficulty, the medical response that is most appropriate for such an event varies, depending on the type of incident. As part of an effort to address these and other challenges for the medical community, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has developed a quick-reference for clinicians (based on the consensus of numerous stakeholders) that summarizes the key differences between various types of potential nuclear and radiological incidents in relation to some key medical response concerns. This paper is not intended for a clinical audience, but rather presents the and describes the framework upon which the is based, providing the health physics community with a clinical perspective of these events.
authors.affiliation: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road, NE, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA. edonnelly@cdc.gov
authors.forename: Elizabeth H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Donnelly
authors.forename: Eduardo B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Farfan
authors.forename: Denise D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Parker
mesh_terms: D004189:Disaster Planning; D006283:Health Physics; D006801:Humans; D018788:Radioactive Hazard Release / Q000145:classification*