IMAM Code Of Ethics Case Study

Natural and man-made disasters have increased in the past decade, and due to these changes, Emergency Managers had to make drastic changes in order to improve the way first responders operate in a disaster area.

Natural disasters may lead to many ethical challenges that are different from normal medical practices. Disasters can vary when comparing to their time, place and extent. Therefore, ethical questions may not always have such simple solutions. Ethical values and principles in every aspect of health-care are very important. Reviewing legal and organizational regulations, developing health-care related guidelines, and disaster recovery plans, establishing on-call committees as well as an adequate in-service training of health-care workers for ethical capability are of the most important of steps. It is only by making efforts before disasters, that ethical challenges can be minimized in disaster responses.

The various local, state, and federal emergency management systems of the United States suffered a crude awakening in the decade of the 2000s. Systems expected to hold up were put to the test and failed to prepare for disaster, mitigate the damage, and, in some instances, actually hampered responses in life-or-death situations. Worse, all failings were highlighted in an age of global communication and mass media, on display first whether a man-made incident like September 11th attacks or natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina. The decade found the complacent government failing to maintain modern emergency management practices, stimulating began a series of doctrinal upgrades and training improvements. Yet, no matter the bureaucracy, writings, or money thrown at a problem, the first responder to the incident has and will continue to influence the outcome. While the individual responder stands as the most important part of

According to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), there are many factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years. These can be classified as global challenges, global opportunities, national challenges, national opportunities, professional challenges, and professional opportunities. Global Challenges include some issues like global climate change, increasing population and population density, increasing resource scarcities, rising income inequality, and increasing risk aversion. Global Opportunities has to do with increased scientific understanding of the hazards and societal responses, as well as revolutionary technologies. National Challenges involves increasing urbanization and hazard exposure, interdependencies in infrastructure, continued emphasis on growth, rising costs of disaster recovery, increasing population diversity, terrorist threats, low priority of emergency management, legal liability, and intergovernmental tensions. Due to these factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years, there is need for us at emergency management division to adjust operational plans to meet these challenges and especially changes emanating from constant changes expected in technology and other threats we face.

As a new (OES) Office of Emergency Service Leader I think that my first agenda should be to effectively understand the relationships between the community, the organization and the stakeholders. Why? Because being able to understand how the system works will enable of our organization meet the challenges of the OES changes. While it is important for my leadership style, which is Servant style I need to remember to open the doors of communication with OES employment staff. This is necessary if we plan to accomplish OES agency objectives. But to do this we will have to discuss how our organization will work effectively with “the local government, businesses, social, federal agencies, and with state and economic influential and hazards practitioners.

The issues discussed in the paper only reach a few areas of concern that could be researched in a reasonable time period. Although, this basic research showed significant issues are present in government involvement in Emergency Services, there needs to be more research to sow that best practices are needed and can be used to prevent further untoward employee actions and liability toward the municipalities. This sends a message that continued research of this topics and specifics within the issues be approached in a professional manner to help government achieve more professional, ethical and lawful approaches to employees and their specific

In “Wither the Emergency Manager,” Niel R. Britton comments on Drabek's “Human Responses to disaster: An Inventory of Sociological Findings.” Britton describes six positive and negative issues in emergency management as it is today. In this paper, we will discuss the implications on emergency management as a field and on the individual manager.

An emergency manager takes on an extremely wide variety of roles and responsibilities, which are needed to be fulfilled in order to achieve an outcome of a secure and resilient Nation. Resilience, by definition according to the Presidential Policy Directive (PPD-8), refers to “the ability to adapt to changing conditions and withstand and rapidly recover from disruption due to emergencies”. Resilience is built upon preparedness and the actions taken to plan, organize, equip, train, and exercise to perform all elements of emergency management. PPD-8 also states that preparedness requires the entire nations commitment. Resilience is a result of preparedness by the community as a whole. In order for an emergency manager to effectively perform

In the Disaster in Franklin County simulation (Regents of the University of Minnesota [UMN], 2006), there were several key personnel in the incident command team. This concept is utilized in real disasters when the Public

The burden of emergency management has grown great deal in the last few decades. We have seen an increase in natural disasters, a new threat of terrorism on our front door and an increase in manmade disasters. All of these have tested emergency management in a number of cities and towns across the nation. It is not always disasters that present problems for emergency managers. We have to look beyond our traditional view of emergency management of helping us during times of disasters and view what issues they consider may affect their emergency response. Issues that emergency management see that are moving into the critical area are issues of urbanization and hazard exposure, the rising costs of disaster recovery, and low priority of emergency management.

First adopted in 1914, the code of ethics for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is the model for professional conduct for all ASCE members. The code of ethics is an excellent model as it is broken down into eight canons for further understanding. The purpose of each canon is to serve as a guide and reminder for professional engineers that they are to have the moral and ethical integrity the profession calls for at all times while holding safety paramount. The ASCE code of ethics is very informative and insightful because although each canon does not go into great depth, the canons leave room for interpretation under different situations.

Great post as usual, it seems that us have covered the four phases of emergency management, and you struck on a portion that I feel is very important, leadership. Leadership in my opinion can be the most important area when we are dealing with an emergency situation. I have always have the philosophy, that as a public servant we should always give more than we take, an its an honor to do the job and lead from the front not the rear. We must build trust between the police and the citizens that we serve and remember that honor is a word that we give as a guarantee and not betray that faith which was entrusted to us.

Unified command is created when the events expand and more individuals are involved. The emergency manager's’ interpersonal skills are tested versus their technical skills. In smaller districts, individuals may hold more than one position while in larger areas the position are designated to each individual. While, the emergency managers transition into the facilitator and the coordinator, and in the large districts the emergency management director becomes the chief. The Federal position is to save lives and support individual and community efforts to prepare and reduce risks when responding to disasters. Accreditation creates an unpredictable the path for collaboration and cooperation, and at times demands a change in the law at the state or local level. The limits to participation, especially when time is of the essences, however it is also affected by convention and culture. The key ultimately, is the relationships that are established among partners within the community. Fire, emergency medical, law enforcement, and other emergency management service, local officials, and private sectors improves communities, thus making them safer, stronger, and prepared to handle

When a disaster has taken place, first responders who provide fire and medical services will not be equipped to meet the demands for many services. Several issues such as the number of victims, communication failures and road blockages will stop people from accessing emergency services they have come to expect at a moment 's notice through 911 emergency services. Individuals will have to rely on others for help in order to meet their immediate lifesaving and life sustaining needs. If access is blocked or the agency’s capacity is exceeded, it may be hours or days before trained help arrives. There is a four-phase model that organizes the events of emergency managers. This model is known as the “life cycle” which includes dour

This emergence of social media has also changed emergency management and disaster response. Emergency management as a whole is fairly new, only creating widely recognized, integrated emergency management systems beginning in the 1970s. Furthermore, at this same time people realized that the effects disasters have on the communities they strike can be mitigated by the creation of disaster plans ahead of time, proper disaster response training, and the efforts of human actions in these situations. Because social media has enabled mass amounts of instant information sharing, it allows not only locals and disaster response teams to help with the management of crises, but also many remote citizens.