The Mid-America Regional Council’s Missouri Disaster Medical Team has honored Dan Purdom, M.D., clinical associate professor of community and family medicine, as its Outstanding Member of the Year.
Purdom joined the team in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina. He has joined disaster relief efforts as far away as Haiti after the devastaing earthquake that struck in January 2010. More recently, he took part in relief efforts in the aftermath of the deadly May 22 tornado that hit Joplin, spending three days working out of a tent in the midst of the destruction.
Locally, Purdom serves as the faculty advisor for the Sojourner Clinic, the student-run free health clinic for Kansas City’s inner-city homeless population that began in 2004. He is currently a primary care physician at the Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center in Kansas City.
He said he uses his vacation time to travel when the team is called on to respond to an emergency.
The Disaster Medical Team is a group of medical and support personnel trained, organized and prepared to activate as a rapid-response unit to provide emergency medical care in the event of a disaster or unusual event.
