Center to Teach Better Terror Response

By TANIA VALDEMORO Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

A major effort is under way to shake the specter of terrorism that hangs over this city, four years after Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, the nation’s first victim of a still-unsolved series of attacks, died of anthrax inhalation.

In the past nine months, city officials and doctors from Florida Atlantic University’s School of Biomedical Science have been collaborating to design a training center where paramedics, doctors, police and firefighters would treat people injured from biological and chemical attacks as well as natural disasters.

The program, to be called the Center for Disaster and Emergency Healthcare Training, would be the first of its kind in Palm Beach County. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security offers similar courses at two facilities, the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, Ala., and the National Emergency Response and Rescue Center at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

The new center would combine medical training with 6-foot human simulator mannequins with a program in which participants will learn how to decontaminate themselves, their patients and equipment after exposure to deadly agents, such as ebola and anthrax.

Michael Friedland, senior associate dean for biomedical science at FAU, says the program “is really a continuing education program for physicians and first responders.”

“Probably what will happen is this will be a five-to-seven-day program with recertification every year so we will have a constant stream of people,” he said.

The program emerged from a new partnership among the university, the city of Boca Raton and BioONE, a joint venture between Giuliani Partners and Sabre Technical Services. In 2004, BioONE decontaminated the former American Media Inc. building, which was infested with anthrax in the 2001 attack.

At the heart of the training are mannequins created by Medical Education Technology Inc. that will mimic human patients under physiological distress.

Depending on the exercise, the mannequins may not breathe properly. They may bleed from stab wounds or get sick from radiation exposure. They could even die if participants don’t give them oxygen or medicine in time.

Adding to the complexity are the different medical histories or personalities stored in the mannequin.

For instance, METI, the university’s sole mannequin, can behave like a wounded 18 year-old soldier, a 55-year-old truck driver with high blood pressure, a woman who is 30 weeks pregnant and a grandmother in her 50s.

“Think of the mannequin as a stage and the computer as the director,” said Mark Goldstein, director of educational development and technology at FAU. “And now combine that with a set of different scenarios.

“The magic words are ‘suspension of disbelief.’ You need to get people thinking this is a real-life environment so that we can improve their critical thinking.”

Within the city’s nascent International Center for Leadership and Development, officials plan to build a simulation center where first responders and doctors would work on the mannequins. The center would house a control room and four chambers: a triage simulation center, a modular ambulance, an emergency room center and a decontamination center.

Medical students at the university already work with the school’s two mannequins as they learn to diagnose patients. “We can program a mannequin so that when students are doing a breast exam, they can feel a lump,” Friedland said.

Each time the participants handle the mannequin, it records and uploads what happened to the control room so instructors can download the same program to the next mannequin as participants move from station to station.

But METI costs $90,000 and at least nine more mannequins are needed for the simulation center, Goldstein said. University and city officials are hoping to secure $3.6 million in federal and state grants to buy the mannequins, build the simulation center and develop the curriculum. State Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach and State Rep. Adam Hasner, R-Delray Beach, filed budget papers with the Florida Legislature in January.

The university would need several levels of approval before completing the program, including President Frank Brogan, FAU’s Board of Trustees and the Board of Governors, which oversees Florida’s 11 universities.

Still, Larry Lemanski, vice president of research at FAU, said he is optimistic the center will pass muster and hopefully win money for start-up costs from the legislature.

“We are anxious to move it forward,” Lemanski said. “We’re enthusiastic and we are hoping our state legislature will see the benefits to the state.”

If given final approval, the center would create two new courses at the university. The first would train medical staffers in treating people injured in terrorist attacks or biological warfare.

The school’s new partnership with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine will bring a new 4-year medical program to FAU’s Boca Raton campus, increasing the number of students who could enroll in the training. The second course would train police and fire-rescue personnel on how to contain areas where a biological or chemical agent has already been released. For example, if a person is infected with anthrax, the class would teach first responders how to handle the patient so that no one else in the ambulance or hospital is exposed.

BioONE will help design a part of the program related to hazardous operations in biologically contaminated areas. Members of Florida’s Legislative Delegation criticized the firm’s involvement because BioONE’s curriculum costs $1.1 million of the program’s $3.6 million proposed budget.

“We’ve pledged to do this at no profit, which means we’ll use our government-audited rates,” said Karen Cavanagh, BioONE’s chief operating officer. “We’ll be covering our costs for the things that cost us money. We’ll provide software and other things that have already been developed at no cost.”

“What we noticed is that first-responders got a good first-level training but it focused on awareness. It was not designed to be a practice or a simulated environment. We want that to change.”

Staff writer Kimberly Miller contributed to this story.

tania_valdemoro@pbpost.com