The Readiness is All
Just ask Mel Otten '73: when it comes to medical terrorism response, they also serve who only stand and wait
If you want to serve on a national Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) and work on the front lines of any terrorist attacks that occur on United States soil, you have to be ready for anything. But mostly, you have to be ready for long stretches of nothing.
Cincinnati physician and medical-school professor Edward ("Mel") Otten '73 spent three days in Washington, D.C., before, during, and after President Bush's State of the Union address in January. He was a member of one of seven DMAT "strike teams" in place around the capital, each with medical personnel ready to respond to a terrorist attack or other disaster during the president's address.
"The State of the Union was only an hour long, but the sitting and waiting was a lot longer than that. And it was boring," Otten says. "But if something does happen, then you're one step closer to helping people. You have to be willing to spend long hours waiting for something you hope doesn't happen."
Otten has spent most of his life preparing for and responding to disasters, as a physician, professor, and volunteer. He is a professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics, and director of the division of toxicology, at the University of Cincinnati. As such, he has designed classes on disaster medicine, lectured on disaster preparedness, and mentored doctors who made disaster medicine their career.
But he has also been on the front lines, responding to disasters in Cincinnati and around the country. In addition to being part of a national DMAT, he is a member of a medical assistance team that responds to local disasters, a county Urban Search and Rescue Team, and a local haz-mat team, and is medical director of the Hamilton County SWAT team.
While most of his time as a volunteer is devoted to natural disasters like tornadoes and hurricanes, Otten says terrorism is never far from his mind. Terrorist attacks, he says, are unlike any other kind of disaster.
"The natural disasters, you kind of expect them. You have a feel for what you are going to see and what is going to happen. I've been to a half-dozen hurricane scenes and I know what is likely to be the result and what I need to do. But an attack like the one on the World Trade Center, that seems so different. It is so overwhelming and so unexpected."
What he does know is that his services and expertise are in demand now like they never have been before. "Ten years ago I would give a lecture on bioterrorism and there would be five people in the audience. After 9/11, people were beating down my door from all over to get me to give talks about terrorism response."
In addition to his talks and lectures, Otten attends monthly training sessions for his various volunteer groups to ensure that he and his colleagues are up-to-date on disaster-response tactics and techniques, and that they know what they have to do in any type of disaster. While he hopes a terrorist attack won't be among the coming catastrophes he will deal with, Otten has no false sense of security. He knows his many hours of training, and hours of waiting at events like the State of the Union, are an insurance policy that may some day be needed.
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