An Event at Penn

In this hypothetical “event”, there has been an outbreak of swine flu on Penn’s campus. Hundreds of students are overflowing the hospitals and the Campus telephones are ringing nonstop with panicked parents and officials. Clearly, this would be a huge emergency and only with a quick and comprehensive plan can total chaos be avoided. Although my knowledge of medical technology and practices is limited, to say the least, there several technologies that I believe will help facilitate a speedy and effective containment of this incident. One of the most important steps to take initially is to gauge both the area affected and the severity of the disease. A combination of phone calls to health centers and on-site observation by health service workers can gather enough info and compile it in order to determine how far the outbreak has spread and where the area of maximum contamination is. Once this estimate is made, the next thing that seems the most important to do for me is to quarantine the area and prepare medical treatment for those in need. As H1N1 is a respiratory disease, the people who are in the most medical need will most likely require artificial breathing machines. These machines are one type of biomedical technology that is life-saving and very important to managing the swine flu outbreak by ensuring that people get the help they require by “creating negative pressure,” resulting in “expansion of the patient’s chest and…passive exhalation” in order to allow a patient to stay alive while the respiratory problem (in this case, swine flu) to be treated (Byrd et al., 2009). Also, antiviral drugs (such as “oseltamivir or zanamivir”) as well as flu vaccines (which “may be ready for the public in the fall” are another piece of biomedical technology that will help manage the swine flu pandemic by reducing its severity (2009). At Penn, these biomedical technologies could be used to manage the outbreak. The areas that are targeted to have the largest risk factor to contracting swine flu after this event could also use more primitive medical technologies such as hand sanitizer, warm water, and soap to help prevent another similar incidence from happening.

(2009, August 5). 2009 H1N1 flu (swine flu) and you. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/H1N1flu/qa.htm

Byrd R.P., Kosseifi, G.K., Roy T.M., (2009). Ventilation, Mechanical. Emedicine. Retrieved (2009, September 22) from http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/304068-overview