Congratulations to MPH Student Rob Gresser who was selected to present a poster at the 2024 International Firefighter Cancer Symposium sponsored by the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Medical Center.
Gresser’s abstract “Fire Department Decontamination Protocols: Do they reduce toxicant exposures for all first responders?” scored 16 out of 31 selected presenters. He was ranked next to nearly 200 submissions. His poster ranked ninth during the event. Over 1200 people attended the hybrid symposium, 700 of them in person.
“The symposium was electric!” Gresser reported. “These were not only fire department personnel, but some of the top researchers in the field. I was welcomed as a fellow researcher and made so many contacts across the country.” He made plans with seven different fire departments for them to bring him in to help change the culture surrounding best practices for reducing toxic exposures, as well as additional ideas for research development.
Gresser presented work for his MPH essay where he surveyed 70 of the largest career fire departments across the country, showing that police officers who enter a burning building to assist people are rarely decontaminated and must continue their shift breathing in the same toxicants that concern us with firefighters. Additionally, it showed that burn patients are rarely decontaminated prior to transport to the burn center, which poses a high risk of exposure for emergency service personnel (EMS) and other first responders who may ride in the ambulance to provide extra assistance for these critical patients, he explained.
“Meeting these people researchers, firefighters and policymakers and making the contacts, as well as developing a relationship for future mentors, re-energizes me for the tough work ahead and makes me appreciate the road to get there even more.”
