5/18/05 EIIP Virtual Forum Background Page: Pandemic Flu--Historical & Hospital Perspectives

Pandemic Flu
Historical and Hospital Perspectives

Linda A. Smith, MD, FACEP
Medical Director, Emergency Preparedness Program
Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association

May 18, 2005

Contents:
Transcript (HTML)
Transcript (MS Word)

LINDA SMITH

Dr. Linda Smith is the Medical Director for Alaska's Emergency Preparedness Program where she provides medical oversight to program activities. Some of those activities include instruction, training and critique of hospital systems in the many areas of CBRNE events and disaster education. She works closely with Public Health and Emergency Managers to establish response protocols for events such as mass casualty incidents and pandemic flu planning activities as they relate to hospital participation and preparation. Additionally, she serves as hospital representative at many local and state committees in order to facilitate incorporation of hospital interests with the many agencies involved in disaster response. Currently she is working as the hospital representative in preparation for the Statewide Alaska Shield Northern Edge exercise scheduled for August of 2005.

Dr. Smith received her MD degree in 1992 followed by post-graduate specialty training in Emergency Medicine from the University of Pittsburgh in 1995. She was designated a Fellow of the College of Emergency Medicine in 1998. Since moving to Alaska, she has been employed at the Alaska Native Medical Center (ANMC) as a Board Certified Emergency Medicine Specialist. Shortly after her arrival to Anchorage, she assumed a three-year administrative assignment in addition to her clinical duties and was ultimately elected to serve as President of the Medical Staff at ANMC in Anchorage, Alaska.

Since the September 11th tragedy, she has spent a great deal of her time educating health care providers on biological and chemical warfare agents and developing and implementing a surveillance software package for bioterrorism. She was selected by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to serve as clinical leader for the state of Alaska for bioterrorism and has completed the US Army courses in Field Management and Medical Management of Chemical and Biological Casualties and the more recent hospital CBRNE course added to the list of civilian training opportunities. In November of 2004 she was a member of a five person Ad Hoc team that traveled to Israel to train on Israeli disaster response systems.

Home