Before a disaster occurs it is important for us to understand and be familiar with procedures and policies that outline proper measures to take during any emergency. Each organization may be slightly different in its incident command system and in order for things to run as smoothly as possible we should understand what those are. After reading a couple of the articles provided I found that some of those roles and responsibilities include ensuring our own safety, delegation of specific duties and tasks, effective collaboration, collective effort, critical thinking, flexibility and in my opinion the most important is teamwork (Mbewe & Jones, 2013).

In my previous career as a first responder, we were always taught to assess scene safety prior to entering somebody’s home, park, mall etc. because if we were injured we would no longer be able to help anybody else. So even though I agree that we have an ethical duty to our patient under an emergency situation we ourselves must be safe in order to render aid. I think about all of the times I had to stand back while a police officer went and secured the scene for my partner and I to then rush in and help a 911 domestic violence case, or wait for the fire crew to handle a structure fire until it was safe to enter. I think my experience as an EMT is no different than that of a registered nurse when there is an emergency whether on/off duty. 

References

Mbewe, C., & Jones, M. (2013). Hurricane Sandy: Competencies needed to contend with natural disasters. MedSurg Matters!, 22(4), 1-5.