Introduction to Terror Medicine

In this era of global terrorism, the medical community has had to confront new and difficult challenges. In some regions of the world, the nature of terror attacks and the effects on victims have prompted novel approaches to rescue operations, diagnosis, treatment, and coordination of services. These measures and others, which collectively may be described as terror medicine, are the subject of this book. Although distinctive in its own right, terror medicine is related to the fields of emergency and disaster medicine. The principal mission of emergency medicine, which has been recognized as a specialty since the late 1960s, includes the evaluation, management, treatment, and prevention of unexpected illness and injury.¹ Subsequently, in the 1990s, disaster medicine was also seen as bearing singular characteristics that relate to the prevention, immediate response, and rehabilitation of the health problems arising from disaster.² Now the proliferation of terrorist attacks during the past decade has produced an understanding of the distinctive features of medical evaluation, treatment, and management associated with these assaults.