Page 106 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

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ethical and Legal Considerations in
Postdisaster Interdisciplinary Collaborations

Anand Pandya

Introduction

Although a breakdown of communication represents one of the greatest
problems in the chaos that follows disasters, the solution is not just to open
up the floodgates of unrestricted sharing. It is important to recognize a
more complex challenge to properly fine tune communication in a way
that respects the autonomy of individuals, the rights of privacy, and the
obligations of confidentiality and privilege. This chapter will elucidate
these related, but distinct, concepts and describe how a lack of attention to
these issues can lead to problems despite the best of intentions.
The author has worked in the aftermath of a variety of disasters begin-
ning in 1998, when I responded to the crash of Swissair Flight 111. Later
that year, I cofounded Disaster Psychiatry Outreach, a nonprofit organiza-
tion dedicated to alleviating suffering in the aftermath of disaster through
the expertise and good will of psychiatrists. I have subsequently helped
organize the Disaster Psychiatry Outreach response to a large number of
disasters including the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 in 1999, the crash of
American Airlines Flight 587 in 2001, the 9/11 attacks (including mul-
tiple sites around New York City), the South Asian tsunami of 2005,
and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Because Disaster Psychiatry Outreach
is a profession-specific organization and because any reasonable disas-
ter response requires collaboration between many different disciplines,
our organization has spent a tremendous amount of time and effort in
developing relationships with the other organizations that may be active

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