Abstract
With large scale disasters, indigent physicians become tied up with urgent care and cannot meet variable health care needs of the community. While physicians who will be assisting are expected to have a wide range of knowledge in medicine, surgery, pediatrics, ob/gyn. and psychiatrics, it is difficult to obtain such knowledge in present day specialist-oriented system. Whereas physicians should be prepared to acquire medical knowledge beyond his/her specialty before a disaster happens, disaster medical manuals are not sufficient for a physician to deal with different types of disaster. Physicians may face difficult situations where patients must be treated for multiple problems simultaneously. Also, knowledge of conditions which seldom break out unless external injuries from disaster are inflicted may become necessary, too. The aim of this article is to explain our effort to accumulate useful knowledge in the primary medical care which may go beyond their personal specialties. National Alliance for Patient Safety in Japan has been preparing knowledge-base in primary care. The author asks readers to join and help disseminate these knowledge base through homepage updating.
