Dr. Susan Briggs Examines a Century of Disaster Medical Response

When an earthquake reduces cities like Port-au-Prince, Haiti or Bam, Iran to rubble, or terrorists destroy sky scrapers in New York City, or a hurricane destroys New Orleans, Winchester native Dr. Susan Briggs and a volunteer team of doctors, nurses and other health professionals are the front line of mobile medical response.

Dr. Briggs is the director of the International Medical Surgical Response Team (IMSuRT). She is also a general and trauma surgeon at Mass General Hospital and Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and past-president of the Pan American Trauma Association. She the is editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Disaster Medicine and the editor of the Advanced Disaster Medical Response Manual for Providers.

Briggs gave a lecture on Boston as a Leader of Medical Disaster Response at the on Tuesday morning, citing the unique history of the rapid and efficient disaster response that has come out of Boston Proper.

“As residents of Boston Proper, you can be proud of the contributions we have made to some of the most vulnerable people on Earth,” Dr. Briggs said. “Even though I am originally a Virginian, I have a huge bias for Boston and Massachusetts. We are the model for international medical and surgical response.”

The first, and perhaps most famous disaster response was that of the SS Mont-Blanc explosion in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia on December 6, 1917, when the French cargo ship loaded with wartime explosives collided with the Norwegian SS Imo. Until the bombing of Hiroshima, this was the largest man-made explosion. It is estimated more than 9,000 people were injured and Boston was quick to react.

“Members of the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee and the Red Cross left for Halifax the morning the news arrived,” Dr. Briggs said. “As a symbol of gratitude, the city of Halifax sends Boston the big Christmas Tree that goes in The common every year.”

Dr. Susan Briggs established IMSuRT in 1999. IMSuRT East is based out of Mass General Hospital, IMSuRT West is based out of Seattle at Harborview Medical Center and IMSuRT South is based out of the University of Miami Ryder Trauma Center. Their services include triage, a system of sorting and treating patients according to the severity of their medical condition, medical treatment, support for local medical staffs, and preparation for patient evacuation.

Briggs received a phone call on Sept. 11, 2001 and within eight hours, 100 medical professionals were at Ground Zero. “Our job is to deploy rapid assembly, multi-purpose field hospitals,” Briggs said. “This was the largest rescue area in U.S. history.”

On December 26, 2003, a 6.6 magnitude earthquake destroyed Bam, Iran. A total of 34 search and rescue teams comprised of 27 countries were on the ground and operating out of 13 international field hospitals. Dr. Briggs said this was the first time since the Hostage Crisis of 1989 that Americans had been allowed into Iran. “Medicine is apolitical,” Dr. Briggs said. “It transcends the constraints of politics and allows us to treat victims regardless of any other exterior factors.”

Exterior factors such as gangs and freed prisoners roaming about refugee camps in Pot-au-Prince, Haiti after the earthquake on January 12, 2010 would not deter the efforts of IMSuRT. “The field hospitals had about 3,000 people and were right next to the refugee camp, so we were in a Hot Zone with all the gang activity,” Dr. Briggs said. “We were protected by the 82nd Airborne at all times while we preformed 300 operations, 50 percent of which were orthopedic.”

Throughout the responses, Dr. Briggs said the children are always the most impressive and most resilient than adults in disaster situations. “One girl was injured in Haiti. She had lost maybe 15 members of her family and she wanted to help out somehow,” Dr. Briggs said. “She played the harmonica and went from hospital tent to tent to play for the patients who would sing with her. And this was better than medicine.”

“Medicine may be the only victor in a disaster,“ Dr. Briggs said. “You cannot change the tragedy, but our efforts can hopefully ease the pain.”