ON CAMPUS AT UCI:An expert in preparedness

Before Sept 11, 2001, Dr. Kristi Koenig belonged to a tiny community of people making careers in disaster preparedness. Then terrorists struck the World Trade Center, and suddenly Koenig and her colleagues were joined by a slew of disaster “experts” hitting the talk show circuit and often disseminating conflicting or bad information.

“We call them the 9/12ers,” Koenig jokes.

Koenig’s interest in emergency medicine began long before Sept. 11, when she attended Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and regularly rode on paramedic ambulances through the streets of Harlem. Today she travels the world, sharing her expertise in disaster medicine, public health preparedness, emergency management and emergency medical services.

As co-director of the EMS and Disaster Medical Sciences Fellowship at the UC Irvine School of Medicine, Koenig trains emergency physicians to ensure patient assessments will be quick, accurate and effective in times of crisis. She also serves on UCI’s Bioterrorism Committee to develop practical and realistic response plans in the event of a real or suspected bioterrorism attack.

In February 2006, she traveled to Mumbai, India, to train doctors and emergency responders for the possibility of a terrorist attack. Five months later, Mumbai suffered a wave of train bombings, which killed more than 200 people and injured hundreds.

“There was a sense of surrealism and shock,” she said. “How can something like this happen when we were just there?”

For more, go to www.ucihs.uci.edu/emergmed.

Alternative Spring Break

Many college students come away from spring break with nothing more than a sunburn and beer belly. Thirty UCI students have something different to show for their time off: the satisfaction of helping their communities.

Through the UCI Volunteer Center’s Alternative Spring Break program, the students participated in week-long service projects. One team helped homeless youths through the StandUp for Kids organization, another learned about the environment at the Catalina Island Conservancy.

“My group members and I provided much-needed support to the center while coming away with a new outlook on the complexities of homelessness in America,” student Chetan Chowdhry said.

For more, go to www.volunteer.uci.edu .

Symphony Concert

UCI Symphony Orchestra will perform a concert featuring works by Delius, Cantaloube, Britten and Chausson, at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. Tickets are $8 to $12. A conversation with conductor Stephen Tucker will be held at 7 p.m. Friday. For more, call (949) 824-2787.

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