Abstract Background Medical students have been deployed in victim care of several disasters throughout history. They are corner stones in first-line care in recent pandemic planning. Furthermore, every physician and senior medical student is expected to assist in case of disaster situations, but are they educated to do so? Being one of Europe’s densest populated countries with multiple nuclear installations, a large petrochemical industry and also at risk for terrorist attacks, The Netherlands bear some risks for incidents. We evaluated the knowledge on Disaster Medicine in the Dutch medical curriculum. Our hypothesis is that Dutch senior medical students are not prepared at all. Methods Senior Dutch medical students were invited through their faculty to complete an online survey on Disaster Medicine, training and knowledge. This reported knowledge was tested by a mixed set of 10 theoretical and practical questions. Results With a mean age of 25.5 years and 60 % females, 999 participants completed the ...