Event Helps Prepare Emory Public Health, Medical Students for Disease Outbreak Response
By Rob Spahr
In August 2014, the first U.S. patients with Ebola virus disease arrived at Emory University Hospital, where they were successfully treated for the rare, often fatal illness. In the process, Emory pioneered what are now the standards for infectious disease outbreak response.
Ten years later—and with memories of the COVID-19 pandemic still fresh—nearly 60 students and medical trainees from Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health and School of Medicine took part in a tabletop exercise that challenged them to work together to effectively respond to an infectious disease outbreak scenario.
The exercise—organized by Emory’s Student Outbreak Response Team (SORT), and facilitated by Emory faculty and representatives from the Georgia Department of Public Health—challenged students to explore the steps necessary to contact trace and quarantine individuals exposed to someone with Marburg Virus Disease. They were then tasked with preparing risk communications for various audiences, including hospital staff, concerned family, and a broader community.
“When a disease like this appears in the United States, the response is going to involve people from beyond the walls of campus. So, it is really beneficial for our students to hear from a variety of perspectives about how a response should occur,” says Allison Chamberlain, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology at Rollins and faculty advisor for SORT. “That is why a lot of effort went into including a variety of people from a variety of areas of expertise in this exercise. The goal was to make it as realistic as possible to what would be the real-world response, in this case to viral hemorrhagic fever.”
Gavin Harris, MD, assistant professor in the School of Medicine’s divisions of infectious diseases and pulmonary, allergy, and critical care medicine, says the exercise’s benefits would extend beyond the students.
“We’ve noticed that regardless of the school or fellowship program you come from, the training for preparedness—not just biopreparedness, but disaster preparedness in general— is quite minimal unless you seek it out,” Harris says. “That is why this was a very valuable opportunity. When these students complete their education and training, they are going to be the ones on the front lines wherever they work. They are going to be the ones in charge, potentially, of a response to care for folks.”
This value was not lost on second-year global epidemiology student Maria Paula Ibarcena-Woll, who was involved in planning the event. She was inspired to participate due to the intersectionality of epidemiology, public health preparedness, and biosecurity for emerging pathogens.
“We have experienced pandemics and have lessons learned. We know that if we are caught off guard, the population we are supposed to protect might suffer,” Ibarcena-Woll said during the event. “So this tabletop showed us how it is important to be ready, to adequately communicate with the public, and to have coordination between different agencies to achieve a common goal, which is the safety and security of the community.”
Jessica Pavlick, DrPH, epidemiology preparedness director for the Georgia Department of Public Health, is a frequent collaborator with Emory, including on the Rollins Epidemiology Fellowship Program, and was excited for the opportunity to serve as a facilitator for the tabletop exercise.
“This is a fantastic opportunity to provide students a practical application of things that they’re learning in class and how to apply that to the real word,” Pavlick said during the event. “For me, it is so interesting to hear all the knowledge they already have and how their minds are thinking about this type of situation.”
Haley Cionfolo, a second-year global epidemiology student at Rollins and co-president of SORT, said she was also impressed by the thought process and creativity of her peers while serving as a co-evaluator during the event.
“It’s really amazing to see everyone so engaged and asking such interesting questions,” Cionfolo said. “It just shows how thoughtful and creative Rollins and School of Medicine students are, and it gives me a lot of hope knowing that I am learning alongside the next generation of outbreak response professionals and those who can handle medical surges.”
Wassim Abdallah, MD, a third-year infectious disease fellow at the School of Medicine, said he wanted to participate in the event to increase his preparedness for a potential infectious disease outbreak. He found tremendous benefit at having an opportunity to consider this preparedness while at a table of experts from different specialties.
“This was eye-opening for me because I look at things from more of a clinical perspective, but I was surrounded here by a lot of public health experts who have their own perspectives, which adds a lot of value to me in terms of learning from this experience and being better prepared to deal with a new pathogen when that arises,” said Abdallah, who is also a second-year student in the Masters of Science in Clinic Research program at Emory’s Laney Graduate School.
This kind of collaborative event, across schools and areas of study, will be rewarding regardless of the students’ future profession, says event facilitator Jamie Felzer, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the School of Medicine’s Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, who completed a master of public health degree at Rollins in 2012 and was a SORT member when she was a student
“How do you prepare to respond when there are so many different scenarios that may come into play? You may think you are prepared for one aspect, but then something else happens,” Felzer says. “Learning how to be prepared for different possibilities and to work with partners to pivot and adapt are really important skills that can set them up for future success in a lot of different ways.”
