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Emergency Management Field Essays

Decent Essays

Issues In “Wither the Emergency Manager,” Niel R. Britton comments on Drabek's “Human Responses to disaster: An Inventory of Sociological Findings.” Britton describes six positive and negative issues in emergency management as it is today. In this paper, we will discuss the implications on emergency management as a field and on the individual manager. In the first positive development, Britton describes New Zealand's efforts to move emergency management into a wider area (instead of simply preparedness and response). Here emergency managers are to be more involved in land management programs, which can help to prevent massive preventable damage in a disaster. Although this moves the career field into a more diffuse mission, …show more content…

My bachelor's degree is in psychology, and I have found many lessons learned from psychology to be applicable to emergency management, especially group behavior in disasters. Emergency managers that I have met tend to be sponges, soaking up information. Britton argues that uncertainty is becoming a large part of the emergency managers mindset. Emergency managers must coordinate with others outside the field to gain insight into many situations. Britton argues that legitimacy is gained from the interface with other careers to reach a common objective. The student must be able to work outside of their comfort zones to develop this fifty-thousand foot view of all interrelated fields as they pertain to emergency management.
Issues to Resolve Britton also argues that we have six major issues as a field to resolve. We are still highly response oriented. Although the thrill of the fight is in response, lives may be saved simply by preventing them from being at risk in the first place. The recruitment of emergency managers tends to focus on those with response oriented goals. Although I personally have a good skill set when it comes to prevention, on paper I am very response oriented. Being response oriented is not necessarily a bad thing, however, emergency managers must learn the skills involved in mitigation. As the counter-terrorism field is drawn

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