The following describes a tabletop drill for a Mass Casualty Situation:

The Emergency Department was partially full when news came of a mass casualty situation (MCS), defined as requiring a hospital to treat a number of injured exceeding its usual capacity. Key personnel began urgently transferring patients outside the department in order to free the beds for an expected onslaught of wounded. These arrived quickly in five waves.

The simulation drill at Rambam's new Emergency Trauma Center

In a real mass casualty event, human lives would be at stake, but this was a NATO-sponsored tabletop drill for multi-national players – a board game with emergency personnel represented by hypodermic syringes labeled Surgeon, Registered Nurses and so forth, and patients represented by tiny cardboard rectangles marked with each individual's age, gender, vital signs and bodily injuries.  

The game was part of a 3-day advanced capacity building course, "The Best Way of Training for Mass Casualty Situations (M.C.S.)," given in Haifa on November 16th-18th by the Teaching Center for Trauma Emergency and Mass Casualty Situations at Rambam.  

Designed for senior physicians, nurses and administrators of hospitals and pre-hospitalization (paramedical) organizations from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Mediterranean Dialogue countries,  the course was initiated by Rambam and organized in joint partnership with NATO (which granted scholarships in order to enable it to take place in Israel), and also enjoyed assistance from the Israeli Health Ministry and MASHAV – the Center for International Cooperation of the Foreign Ministry of Israel.

Co-directing the course with Dr. Michaelson was Brigadier General (ret.) Dr. Leo Klein of the Czech Republic, Head of the Department of Field Surgery in the Faculty of Military Health Sciences at the University of Defence. The course was coordinated by Gila Hyams, RN, who directs the Teaching Center for Trauma Emergency and MCS and coordinates the Trauma Unit at Rambam.

American, European and Israeli specialists in the field of trauma  trained participants in various best practices for coping with the pre-hospital, hospital and non-conventional aspects of MCS.

The training stressed the central importance of logistical pre-planning and organization, and of periodic drilling and debriefing of personnel.
 
In keeping with the course's learning-by-doing methodology, the visitors closely observed an MCS drill at Rambam's new Emergency Trauma Center, and then actively debriefed their Rambam counterparts.
 
The course's primary aim was to give participants methods for teaching their knowledge of MCS preparedness to medical professionals in their home hospitals and countries.
"The 2nd Lebanon War taught Rambam the importance of training all hospital doctors and nurses, not just emergency staff," Ms. Hyams told the participants. "You have to share the knowledge in order to prepare your whole hospital staff."