About Us
The Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) was founded after President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union Address, in which he asked all Americans to volunteer in support of their country. MRC is a specialized component of Citizen Corps, a national network of volunteers dedicated to ensuring hometown security. Citizen Corps, along with the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the Peace Corps are all part of the President’s USA Freedom Corps, which promotes volunteerism and service throughout the nation.
MRC units are community-based and function as a way to locally organize and utilize volunteers—medical professionals and others—who want to donate their time and expertise to promote healthy living throughout the year and to prepare for and respond to emergencies. MRC volunteers supplement existing local emergency and public health resources.
MRC volunteers include medical and public health professionals such as physicians, physician assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners, paramedics, pharmacists, and dentists. Other community members, such as interpreters, chaplains, office workers, and legal advisors, can fill other vital support positions.
We Need Both Medical & Non Medical Personnel
Medical volunteers are needed to perform specific medical functions. However, non medical volunteers can fulfill other important roles to support important public health services. During a disaster or public health emergency, MRC volunteers may be called upon to staff acute care clinics in shelters, emergency vaccination clinics or pharmaceutical distribution clinics. Many functions are needed to run a clinic.
Some of these include:
- Intake and registration
- Triage
- Serving as interpreters or translators
- Health information management, logistics and resources
- Providing mental health consultation
- Patient education and screening
During non-emergency times, volunteers participate in a variety of training, exercises, and recruitment activities to enhance response capabilities during emergency events. Volunteers are needed year round to participate in activities such as health fairs, free clinics, sports exercises and public health preparedness.
Training
Volunteers may choose to participate in live training offered throughout the year. Online training is also available through the Northwest Louisiana MRC website including links to state and national training opportunities. Continuing Education Units (CEU) and Continuing Medical Education (CME) are available.
Activation
In the event of a public health emergency, the Caddo-Bossier Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness would activate MRC and volunteers would be notified using the contact information provided upon registration to let you know where and when to report. During emergency response MRC volunteers can view important disaster-related announcements and schedule dates and times to volunteer through the website.