Gregory Ciottone, M.D., director of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's division of international disaster and emergency medicine, was sleeping after a night in the emergency department when the call came on Sept. 11, 2001. A second airplane had struck the World Trade Center and his Disaster Medical Assistance Team was being activated.

The commander of the first DMAT team to reach Ground Zero, he spent two weeks treating search and rescue workers. Several weeks later, the team was activated again to screen and treat more than 5,000 people for potential anthrax exposure.

This background is part of the reason the United Nations Disaster Management Training Program has turned to Ciottone's Emergency Management Visions International to write a training module for terrorist events in nations around the world. Working in conjunction with BIDMC's Phillip Anderson, M.D., EMVI will help train disaster management personnel around the globe in how to deal with crises ranging from chemical and biological incidents to building collapses. The project is jointly sponsored with the World Health Organization.

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