The HERO team is committed to ensuring the next generation of leaders – our students on campus – are well equipped to plan for and respond to health emergencies. We do that through a variety of activities
- The U of M Medical Reserve Corps provides health sciences students with the opportunity to train and respond alongside faculty and staff colleagues.
- The UMNPrepared program provides opportunities for personal and family preparedness.
- We teach undergraduate courses in infectious disease outbreak investigation, response, and prevention in partnership with the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
- We teach a graduate level course in public health emergency preparedness in the School of Public Health
- We guest lecture in multiple graduate level health sciences courses.
- We advise and host students for summer internships, capstone projects and other student learning opportunities
To highlight one example, I am delighted to turn over this column to our current student team member, Sophia Miles from the Hubert H Humphrey School of Public Affairs to share about her internship with our office during this semester.
As midterm season folds into final projects, I am reminded of my previous belief that everything ends. Movies, like A House of Dynamite, end, but they also open doorways. For me, they opened the door to career exploration. A House of Dynamite introduces the idea of critical emergency response. It includes much more in the 1 hour 52 minute run-time, but it introduced me to this question: how do we respond to emergencies?
Before my career path discovery, I worked in the legislative world. Four or five months every year were hectic scrambles toward passing bills into laws. There were sleepless nights, paper cuts, endless hearings and meetings, but there were magical people who pulled off miracles every year. Then it stopped and we began preparing for the next session.
While those busy months often got the spotlight, it was preparedness that made those four to five months a success. In health preparedness nearly any scenario is dissected into individual manageable pieces. Take vaccines for example. Getting a shot in the arm is really just the culmination of many small steps, from disease surveillance to vaccine development to securing locations for mass clinics. For severe weather, health preparedness handles everything from sheltering in place to evacuation to family reunification.
My work at the Health Emergency Response Office (HERO) has been diving into what could be someone's worst day and setting up the stations that get them back onto their feet. I’ve researched the right ratio of crayons to jumbo crayons to have in a children’s room to ensure that every child has their psychological needs met when they walk into a shelter. I’ve learned the backbone of every health response is the Medical Reserve Corps by completing the staff matrix for a 12-hour shift in a Family Assistance Center. The sheer number of people needed to operate a center still blows my mind, but it puts everything about why HERO is constantly running into perspective. HERO doesn’t stop because we’re constantly planning, training, educating, and preparing. Whether it’s collaborating with our University partners to train staff, faculty, and students to administer Naloxone, welcoming our newest Medical Reserve Corps members, supporting a fall vaccination clinic with Boynton Health, or teaching a class, HERO is there. It’s laying the foundation to hold the University together when an outside force unexpectedly hits.
Expect the unexpected. It’s a common phrase, but one that A House of Dynamite failed to utilize. All fail-safes failed for them. The legislature had something similar when a bill was proposed that someone didn’t like, everything they had was thrown at it in an attempt to stop its passage. Health preparedness lives by expecting the unexpected. They are elbows deep and planning for it before the rest of the world has a chance to. In my next chapter, I’m taking that motto with me.
– Sophia Miles, MPP Candidate