Providing aid to victims has probably been the first task that faced medicine since its emergence from ancient times. However, within the building of medicine erected for many centuries disaster medicine as an independent branch has established itself relatively recently.
In our country, the starting point in the creation of the All-Russian Center for Disaster Medicine was the decree of the Government of the Russian Federation № 420 of May 3, 1994 On Protection of Life and Health of the Population of the Russian Federation in the Event of Emergency Situations Caused by Natural Disasters, Accidents and Catastrophes. The special role of disaster medicine in the hierarchy of medical specialties is due to the constant increase in the number and scale of disasters, both natural and man-made. Suffice it to recall such events as earthquakes in Sakhalin (1995), Turkey (1999), Colombia (1999), Taiwan (2000), China (2008), Haiti (2010), Chile (2010), the Indian ocean tsunami (2004), SouthEast Asia (2005), Katrina hurricane in the United States (2005), floods in Russia (Lensk, 2001; Far East, 2013), Pakistan (2008), turf fires in Russia (2010), terrorist acts in new York (2001), Beslan (2004), man-made accidents in Chernobyl (1986), the Mexican Gulf (explosion of the drilling platform, 2010), Japan (Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, 2011), and many others. Large-scale natural and ecological catastrophes, growing incidence of transport injuries, global terrorist threat, local armed conflicts demonstrate convincingly that in the modern world people cannot feel safe anywhere any longer.
Over more than 20 years, disaster medicine in Russia has come a long way building a solid scientific base, gaining extensive practical experience and well-deserved authority. Disaster medicine is in constant development, responding to new challenges, absorbing the latest achievements of science and practice, highly effective medical and organizational technologies. This is reflected in the training of doctors, which puts emphasis on provision of emergency care to victims of emergencies in time of peace and war. According to the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard, the academic curriculum of medical universities has a new discipline, Emergency Medicine, the teaching of which is assigned to the last year of study. Based on the previously acquired knowledge, this allows a focus on those features of diagnosis, diagnostic triage, emergency care and evacuation of victims, which are inherent to work in the aftermath of an emergency.