Pediatric Disaster Medicine

Pediatric patients represent a substantial proportion of disaster victims. Children are more vulnerable than adults and necessitate special care requirements when critically ill or injured, as well as posing unique mental health challenges. The PedsDM-SIG’s mission is to introduce this new initiative on the global stage and to foster collaboration among researchers and practitioners with an interest in the mitigation, preparedness, and response steps required to be proactive in the global approach to the response and resilience of Pediatric Disaster Medicine and to disseminate advances in pediatric disaster care.

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Webinar Date: 5 November 2025

Prehospital Pediatric Triage in Resource-Limited Settings

Infant and childhood mortality remains unacceptably high in Northern Uganda, and on average, half of pediatric deaths occur at the community level. Currently, there is no standardized risk prediction tool available in the prehospital setting to identify sick children who require immediate health services. In this presentation, Dr. Olanya Denish and Dr. Daniel Ebbs discuss their research, which focuses on developing tools and training for community health workers to identify high-risk children in Northern Uganda.

Pediatric Disaster Medicine SIG Leadership

Ashley Kane, MD, MSCR

Co-Chair

Disaster Medicine Faculty, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Hospitalist, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center & Boston Children's Hospital

Instructor, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Ashley E. D. Kane is a board-certified pediatrician and internist and holds a Master’s Degree in Clinical Research. She practices as a Hospitalist with Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. During the COVID pandemic she served on the Hospitalist COVID Task Force for BIDMC. She is currently a Disaster Medicine Fellow in the Harvard University / Beth Israel Deaconess Disaster Medicine Fellowship and the co-founder of the Pediatric Special Interest Group for the fellowship along with Dr. Lea Sarna-Cahan.

Lea Sarna-Cahan, MD

Co-Chair

Disaster Medicine Faculty, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Attending Physician and Clinical Instructor, Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School

Dr. Lea Sarna-Cahan is a board-certified pediatrician who serves as an Attending Physician and Clinical Instructor at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem, Israel. She served as a military paramedic with the Israel Defense Forces. She is currently a Disaster Medicine Fellow at Harvard University and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the co-founder of the Pediatric Special Interest Group for the fellowship along with Dr. Ashley E. D. Kane. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she established a multidisciplinary pediatric clinic for children recovering from MIS-C.