Medical Reserve Corps

The Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) is a network in the U.S. of community-based units initiated and established by local organizations to meet the public health needs of their communities. It is sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). The MRC consists of medical and non-medical volunteers who contribute to local health initiatives, such as activities meeting the Surgeon General’s [1] priorities for public health, and supplement existing response capabilities in time of emergency. The MRC provides the structure necessary to pre-identify, credential, train, and activate medical and public health volunteers.

The Medical Reserve Corps Program (MRC PO) is the national "clearinghouse for information and guidance to help communities establish, implement, and sustain MRC units nationwide."

As of June 3, 2013, there are 936 local MRC units and more than 200,000 volunteers. MRC units are present in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Guam, Palau, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The events of September 11, 2001, underscored a need for a mechanism to better utilize volunteer medical and public health professionals. Medical providers who wanted to help alleviate the strain on local medical systems where the terror incidents occurred arrived on their own and at personal risk. Despite their intentions, their presence became problematic for emergency managers due to difficulties that arose surrounding the use of spontaneous, unaffiliated volunteers.

Some of these issues included volunteer credentialing, liability, and management.

Subsequent emergency situations, such as the anthrax mailings in October 2001 further highlighted the need for an organized volunteer response system. Federal, state, and local response assets were able to provide prophylactic doses of antibiotics to thousands of individuals who may have been exposed to anthrax spores. Leaders quickly realized, however, that they would have been overwhelmed if the number of individuals at risk was much larger. Point of distribution sites would need more workers, including many more health professionals.

Lessons-learned sessions and after-action reports from the response to September 11, 2001 and the anthrax mailings discussed the need for a more organized approach to catastrophic disasters. They also identified many of the issues that needed to be addressed, including volunteer pre-identification, registration, credentialing, training, liability, and activation.

The MRC was founded after President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union Address, in which he asked all Americans to volunteer in support of their country. The MRC is a partner program of Citizen Corps, a national network of volunteers dedicated to ensuring hometown security. Citizen Corps, along with the Corporation for National and Community Service and the Peace Corps, are part of the President’s USA Freedom Corps, which promotes volunteerism and service nationwide.

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