Do US emergency medicine residency programs provide adequate training for bioterrorism?

Currently, there is no standardized curriculum for training of emergency physicians about the health hazards related to weapons of mass destruction. Opportunities for the widespread teaching of this material have remained limited, and the range of knowledge regarding even general disaster medical care is also variable among most residency training programs in the United States. We developed a survey to ascertain whether any formal training in biological weapons is conducted in emergency medicine programs; to determine the overall subjective ability of program directors or residency directors to recognize and clinically manage casualties of biological weapons agents; and to identify which resources might be used by emergency physicians to identify and treat biological warfare casualties. We also document a baseline of current practices regarding biological weapons training in emergency medicine residency programs.