Ethics approval and consent to participate
No ethics or internal review board permission were sought or are required for this paper. The Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) approved the administration of this pilot course under its leadership.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Availability of data and materials
The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the KAIPTC repository.
Competing interests
Authors disclose no competing interests of any kind.
Funding
The German Government sponsored for accommodation of all course participants, flights, food, accommodation and sustenance of the facilitator faculty and the Learning Develop Design Workshop in Accra, Ghana.
Authors' contributions
JQ, JW, TU and MB provided the first four drafts. MR, PT, TA, MB, AM, SG and CH provided vital analysis and final draft of the “Highlighted Core Course Content” section. All authors approved of the final manuscript.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the KAIPTC for the opportunity to participate in this pilot course. We also wish to thank the German Government for its financial, managerial and organizational support provided by Col. Michael Reinwald. Lastly, we wish to thank all those who respond to disaster and run into a complex emergency while most are trying to escape out of it. To the anonymous responders, we thank you all for your service.
Authors' information
John Quinn is lead researcher at the Prague Center for Global Health (www.pcgh.lf1.cuni.cz), Staff Emergency Medicine Registrar in London and Medical Director and consultant to Tangiers International. He works in conflict, disaster and emergency medicine. He holds his Masters in Public Health (MPH), PhD in Hygiene and Epidemiology and is both a paramedic and emergency medical doctor with over 20 years’ experience globally. His research efforts are found here: Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Quinn_V; LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmquinnv and ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6877-8298.
Dr. Quinn has performed emergency medical assessments in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, Iraq, Kurdistan and Timor-Leste. He has established and operated remote medicine clinics in conflict zones and for remote communities and has consulted for NATO and NATO partner nations in the health and medical stability operations sectors. He worked as an emergency physician at a Level One Trauma Center in Ireland and has worked in Ukraine providing emergency medical consulting and training in Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) and Damage Control Resuscitation (DCR). Presently, Dr. Quinn completes clinical time in the UK in emergency medicine and conducts global health research related to conflict and disaster. He is based in Prague with his family.
Professor Bricknell took up his appointment as Professor in Conflict, Health and Military Medicine at King’s College London in April 2019. Prior to his he served 34 years in the UK Defence Medical Services, culminating his service as the Surgeon General of the UK Armed Forces. He undertook operational tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Balkans with multiple additional overseas assignments. In 2010 and 2006, he held senior Medical Adviser appointments in the NATO ISAF mission. He commanded 22 Field Hospital in 1999-2002. He has trained as a general practitioner and is an accredited specialist in both Public Health and Occupational Medicine. He holds two doctorates and 3 master’s degrees. He has published over 100 academic papers across military medical subjects. He is especially interested in how organizations learn, care pathways in military healthcare, and the political economy of health in conflict. He was awarded the Companion of the Order of Bath, the Order of St John and the US Bronze Star during his military service.
Dr. James M Wilson is a board-certified, practicing pediatrician who specializes in operational health security intelligence, with a focus on the anticipation, detection, and warning of infectious disease crises. Dr. Wilson was the first operations chief of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Biosurveillance Integration Center. Dr. Wilson led the private intelligence teams that provided tracking of H5N1 avian influenza as it spread from Asia to Europe and Africa, detection of vaccine drifted H3N2 influenza in 2007, warning of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, and discovery of the United Nations as the source of the 2010 cholera disaster in Haiti. Dr. Wilson is a strong advocate for effective and accountable global health security intelligence and the need for credible and balanced threat assessments.
Timo Ulrichs is professor for global health at Akkon University for Human Sciences (www.akkon-hochschule.de). He studied medicine and specialized in medical microbiology and infection epidemiology and holds another doctoral degree in public health. His research interests are infection control, health care system strengthening, global health security and the nexus between humanitarian aid, development aid and peacekeeping. He works as a trainer for SPHERE standards and interventions and runs several collaborative projects in health and biomedical research with partners in Eastern Europe, Southern Caucasus and Africa. For these research activities, he founded the Institute for Research in International Assistance at Akkon University.