Lessons Learned From Katrina: One Department’s Perspective

Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on Monday, August 29, 2005, causing multiple breaches in a fragile levee system, which resulted in massive flooding. The School of Medicine at Tulane University, Tulane University Hospital and Clinic, the Medical Center of Louisiana, New Orleans, and many of our other affiliate institutions were among the casualties of the flood. No disaster plan for such a devastating event had been formulated and, thus, the University, as well as individual departments, was left to develop onsite plans to address such needs as location of personnel (faculty, staff, and trainees), remote education of medical students, and treatment of displaced patients. The Department of Psychiatry and Neurology set up headquarters at the state hospital in Jackson and began to pull the department back together again through Yahoo group forums and departmental meetings (with teleconference accessibility) held in Baton Rouge and Jackson. Faculty were assigned to shelters, as well as health and mental health clinics where needed in Louisiana and Houston. Students and residents were reassigned to Baylor and the University of Texas medical schools until academic and clinical facilities could be reopened in New Orleans. With the loss of clinical revenue came the most painful piece of the survival process: cuts in faculty (25 total) and staff (24 total). All 25 faculty members from our department who were separated from the University were given separation packages and clinical (volunteer) faculty appointments with the hope that they will continue to actively support the academic and research missions of the department. We hope to recruit and rebuild once the clinical facilities are fully functional again. The significant lesson learned in the aftermath of this tragedy is “Recovery is a marathon, not a sprint!”