Medical Reserve Corps

A Medical Reserve Corps (often called an “MRC”) is a specialized work unit of people who volunteer their time and expertise to help mitigate a disaster, supplement public health and serve their country in an emergency. The Medical Reserve Corps is a national program that is designed to support local efforts to use community medical and health volunteers during emergencies. Many medical and health volunteers offered their help individually on September 11, 2001, demonstrating the need for a more organized approach to using volunteers during an emergency. The MRC program is fairly new (incepted in 2002) but well established. Many communities have already formed MRC units and St. Louis County Health is gearing up one for our jurisdiction.

To read more about the MRC program nationally, please visit this website: http://www.medicalreservecorps.gov/HomePage

There are many different types of MRC units. St. Louis County Health has decided to form its unit based around nurses. The Saint Louis County Department of Health is looking for volunteer registered nurses to work in medical dispensing sites for public health emergencies.

Nurses working in hospitals and health department nurses are not being recruited because of their critical role in public health emergencies at all times. After recruitment and training, volunteers will participate in exercises and public health emergencies under the direction of the health department.

Initial training consists of 1 half-day session and 1 whole- day session. Exercises of 2 – 4 hours in length will be scheduled every two to three months. Requests for MRC help with actual public health emergencies could come at any time!

For more information, please call Saralou Hendrickson, RN at 314-615-1635 or e-mail her at shendrickson@stlouisco.com.

       - Medical Reserve Corps Unit Volunteer Application,(Adobe PDF
         Format)