How to specialise in disaster medicine in South Asia
A practical guide to disaster medicine training and certification routes in India and Nepal, and how the 16-module Faculty programme works.
Why disaster medicine is a distinct specialty
South Asia absorbs a disproportionate share of the world's earthquakes, cyclones, floods and epidemics, yet formal training in disaster medicine is virtually absent across most low- and middle-income countries. Clinicians are asked to plan, triage and treat at scale with little structured preparation. Disaster medicine closes that gap: it is the clinical discipline that connects pre-hospital care, emergency medicine, public health and healthcare system preparedness.
The training route: Faculty of Disaster Medicine - India & Nepal
Saving Lives International funds the Faculty of Disaster Medicine - India & Nepal (FDMIN), a niche programme of 16 modules delivered through recognised medical and healthcare education institutions and universities. India and Nepal are the pilot countries for the model.
The programme is deliberately modular. Rather than removing clinicians from service for a long full-time qualification, modules are taken flexibly and accumulate credit from the training provider, which fits continuing professional development in busy hospital systems.
What the modules cover
Content spans the full disaster cycle - preparedness, response and recovery - with a consistent emphasis on what is achievable with locally available resources:
- Disaster medicine principles, planning and preparedness
- Pre-hospital care and triage at scale
- Emergency and trauma care in resource-limited settings
- Mass casualty incident management
- Hospital and healthcare facility preparedness
- Public health in disasters and displacement
- Infectious diseases, epidemics and pandemics
- Healthcare for displaced people and refugees
- Disaster and mental health
- Community physicians and primary care in disasters
- Global health security and resilience
- Research, audit and case study publication
The train-the-trainers model
The programme's primary focus is not to train individual responders one at a time. It is to train the trainers: senior clinicians and educators already embedded in teaching institutions, who then expand disaster medicine capacity at every level of their own healthcare system. One cohort of faculty members can seed courses for hundreds of doctors, nurses and paramedics, which is why the model scales in countries where external teaching visits alone cannot.
In practice, that means each partner institution works to:
- Develop core clinical capacity for disaster medicine at several levels of the healthcare system.
- Build essential skills across the healthcare spectrum, based on available resources.
- Enable research and publish case studies from recurring regional disasters.
- Strengthen disaster management plans with genuine disaster medicine planning, preparedness, response and recovery.
- Reinforce population health, primary care, public health, pre-hospital and emergency care, and global health security.
How the training integrates with local medical education
FDMIN holds memoranda of understanding with partner institutes in India and Nepal to develop teaching and training in disaster medicine, delivering courses that are fit for purpose at levels appropriate to the region. Because delivery sits inside existing universities and teaching hospitals, modules can be mapped onto postgraduate and CPD pathways clinicians already follow, rather than competing with them.
United Kingdom development advisors support curriculum and standards, including the Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, alongside UK public health and catastrophe medicine bodies.
Who should apply, and how to start
The programme suits doctors, nurses, paramedics, community physicians, public health practitioners and healthcare educators, particularly those with a teaching remit. Institutions interested in hosting modules, and clinicians who want to be nominated for training, should contact us directly at peter@isavinglives.org.
Experienced trainers in pre-hospital care, emergency and disaster medicine, public health, epidemics and pandemics, refugee health or disaster mental health can also volunteer to teach on the programme.