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It's 2:37 a.m. when the phone wakes you in your Brooklyn apartment. An urgent message from New York City's voluntary Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) unit asks you to report to the nearest of the city's 24 points of dispensing by 6 a.m. -- prepared to spend days there in case quarantine restricts your movement. Your mission: To help vaccinate 300,000 frightened residents against a smallpox outbreak confirmed just hours ago.
You might not have envisioned that scenario or countless other public health emergencies that could cause your unit to be activated. But that's what people like you sign up for when they join the MRC, a loose federal coalition of local organizations of volunteer healthcare workers and laypeople who have agreed to aid their communities -- or occasionally another US region -- in crisis and help augment a public health system that may be overloaded.
What Is the Medical Reserve Corps?
Founded in 2002 in the wake of the September 11 and anthrax attacks, this emergency medical preparedness program sponsored by the Office of the Surgeon General has grown from a $2 million seed-grant project into a national network, for which the White House requested $22 million for the 2005-2006 fiscal year.
"The concept is to establish a national system of these local teams to strengthen public health and emergency response capabilities," says commander Robert Tosatto, director of the national MRC in Washington, DC. "We want MRCs to identify volunteers in the community in advance and get them credentialed and trained."
What Do MRC Volunteers Do?
In addition to giving vaccinations, MRC volunteers may be called upon to triage and educate patients, perform medical evaluations and distribute medication.
MRC units are hosted by a variety of organizations, including local government agencies like the police or health department, or nongovernmental or faith-based organizations, such as hospitals.
According to the national MRC, its units are all composed differently in order to meet varied local needs. In practice, volunteer staffing of some units appears to be a matter of circumstance. The Sacred Heart Hospital's MRC in Allentown, Pennsylvania, has 41 physicians and 32 registered nurses among its volunteers, while the ratio at the MRC in Shreveport, Louisiana, is very different: 19 physicians to 105 RNs.
Even highly qualified healthcare workers will need training in emergency response. "We ask that everyone completes some common training that adds up to eight to 10 hours over a few weeks," says Scott Ingram, a unit director with the Medical Reserve Corps of Southern Arizona in Tucson. After that, typical volunteer service is a few hours a month.
Local MRCs need healthcare workers in many specialties. "In some units, we're coming up short on mental health professionals, respiratory therapists and pharmacists," says Tosatto. Other healthcare volunteers at MRCs can include physician assistants, nurse practitioners, licensed practical nurses, paramedics, dentists and veterinarians.
Those who consider registering with an MRC unit need to know that their service in a crisis, though voluntary, will be critical to the community. "We ask that volunteers commit to serve throughout the event for all the time slots we would need them to cover," says Anne Rinchiuso, MRC coordinator at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
How Can MRC Service Boost Healthcare Careers?
Most volunteers join the MRC to help their neighbors, but they may also benefit from joining a wider professional network. "We have a wide range of health professionals that we recruit from private practices, hospitals, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and nonprofits," says Rinchiuso.
Free continuing education in emergency preparedness and response is often a perk of MRC membership. New York City, for example, offers accredited online tutorials to registered members of its MRC.
MRC volunteers sometimes sacrifice pay as well as time in order to serve. If MRC members serve for an extended period, as some volunteered to do in the wake of hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, their regular employers typically don't compensate them. "Most commonly, people sacrifice their two weeks' leave for the year," says Ingram.
But for healthcare professionals who seek the gratification of being there for neighbors in a time of great need, the Medical Reserve Corps is a unique volunteering opportunity.
"There will always be a need for healthcare professionals who have an interest in emergency preparedness and response," says Tosatto.
