“The aim of science is not to open to door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error”. Bertolt Brecht 1898-1956 Life of Galileo (1939)

The world we live in today is a true global village making it imperative for the scientific community to continue an active role in the development of the current body of literature pertinent to the disaster medicine field. It is only through the merger of academia and practice that providers can obtain and learn the necessary tools to prepare, plan and respond to a diversity of potential catastrophic events.

With the phenomenon of globalization, now more than ever we witness the consequences of disasters affecting near and distant regions alike. The traditional understanding of the impact of such events has evolved, with this change leading to new challenges for governments, policy makers and respondents. The medical and public health fields are not exempt from this phenomenon, thus requiring disaster medical providers and public health specialists to view them from a global perspective, and to take into consideration the potential multinational implications of events of this nature.

As the new editor-in-chief of the Internet Journal of Rescue and Disaster Medicine I would like to welcome our readers to this first issue of our journal for the year 2005 as well as the beginning of my editorialship. Through an international partnership with leading disaster experts we have developed an amazing collaborative effort, that has resulted in our Special Issue on “Hospital Disaster Preparedness”.

This year we bring several new additions to the Internet Journal of Rescue and Disaster Medicine. Our journal has been designated and recognized as the official journal of the Colombian Association of Prehospital Care and the Dominican Society of Prehospital Medicine; in keeping with this global perspective, articles will be reviewed, accepted and published in both Spanish and English.

Finally, I wanted to express my commitment to making the IJRDM a leading global publication in prehospital and disaster medical care. In our future issues we will continue to offer innovative original research, expert reviews and guest editorials that will prove to shape the future of prehospital, rescue and disaster medical care through the merger of knowledge, practice, education and research.

Many thanks,

Amado Alejandro Baez MD MSc EMT-P Editor-in-Chief Internet Journal of Rescue and Disaster Medicine Baez.amado@mayo.edu Next issue: May- August Special Issue on Tactical and Special Operations Medical Support