6 November, 2015

As part of the new National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Emergency Preparedness and Response at King’s College London, we are offering a three-year, full-time studentship to work on a project exploring the ways in which we prepare health professionals to respond to public health emergencies.

Emergency response personnel participate in a variety of exercises that are designed to train individuals and to develop organizational capacity for responding in emergency events. For instance, highly complex field-based training exercises test both systems and personnel as they respond to a simulated emergency event, such as a terrorist attack using a chemical, biological, or radiological agent. However, little is understood or known about the impacts that these expensive and complex training activities have in the immediate, short, and longer term, or about whether and how these preparation activities provide learning that transfers to the more complex and stressful training exercise. 

In this study, which is a part of a larger project exploring this theme, a PhD student will seek to answer some of these questions. The overall aims of the proposed research project are to identify, understand and explicate the ways in which health professionals learn from emergency exercises and how this affects their emergency preparedness, and to utilize the collected evidence to contribute to the design of effective emergency preparedness exercises conducted by Public Health England and other organisations.

This PhD studentship will explore the role of emergency preparedness exercises in preparing and supporting healthcare professionals to respond in emergency situations. 

For more details, and information on how to apply, please click here. 

Deadline for applications: 1 December 2015