Our scenario was several dead hippos around a lake in Africa. We had to answer questions about what we would do to investigate, what tests we wanted, and what we would tell to local farmers or public health officials.
Do a post-mortem, we all thought, duh.
Long story short, turns out we all caught anthrax. It's the ONE time that you don't want to do a PM, because once they get exposed to the air, they start forming spores. That's bad.
It was an interesting session academically, because there were a lot of questions about what you would do. How do you dispose of the carcasses? What's the danger to surrounding farms? (I believe we decided to tell everyone to vaccinate). In this scenario, there were a lot of poachers in the area who would eat the hippos and pose a massive public health risk, and the discussion on how to deal with that was fascinating. However, the real joy of the lab came from the reporter roleplay. You see, each group had to elect one spokesperson to talk to the media (played by the prof). They also had to wait outside so they couldn't hear what anyone before them got asked. My god, it was hilarious.
The prof did everything in his power to make my classmates squirm. He'd hone in on the slightest slip up of wording or hint that something was amiss. He grilled them. Plus, there was a great amount of hilarity from trying to get my classmates to explain the medical terminology they kept using.
The main takeaway message was, surprisingly for all of us, do not lie to the public. Don't try to "prevent panic" or whatever, just give them the facts. There is a danger, and they need to know the steps to take to protect themselves and their livelihoods.
That, and don't pop dead hippos.
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