Monday, May 23, 2011

Tornado Hits Joplin

By now most of you have heard about the devastating tornado in Joplin, Missouri. The warnings were coming and it certainly makes you stop and think...are we prepared?

In our hospitals, we go through several emergency preparation drills each years and certainly some real emergencies as well. It seems that you can't practice enough and you wrestle with the balance of the need to practice more and the time needed to practice. I have seen pictures on the Internet and through those sent by people I know down in Joplin. We have two nurse leaders assisting in Joplin, Collette Culver and Barb Swords. There has been a tremendous amount of devastation to the community and St. John's Regional Medical Center.

Times like this make us look at our own systems to determine how are training would have prepared us if this devastation touched home. We will have internal debriefings and additional drills to further prepare our team and community.

Our thoughts are with the medical center's CEO, Gary Pulsipher, their staff and the entire Joplin community.

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