Best case ever.

Best case ever.

Yes, this is EMK's Best Case Ever mini planning at the hospital.

She's an emergency physician and has been for, I won't say how many years, but very experienced emergency physician.

Lori, it's a pleasure to have you on EM cases for your best case ever.

This isn't really the best case in the sense. It has a bad outcome for the

people involved. It has a very good outcome for the rest of the people in the world who had to

deal with this problem, which is how to intubate a SARS patient. But I do have to give you a bit of

background. It's 2003 and it's February and I get an email from

WHO who I have absolutely no idea however they have my email address that says there is a mysterious

respiratory disease that people need to be aware of anybody coming from China or Hong Kong to your

emergency department. And if you do encounter them, you have to wear an N95 respirator. They say N95

respirator. At that time, I tell you, I had absolutely no idea what that meant. I thought it was

like scuba gear or something, so I'm online. And as SARS progressed and more health care

providers were getting sick with SARS from taking care of them, they were adding layers and layers

of PPE.

So we ended up with the double double, double mask, double eye protection, double gloves,

double gown, double hair protection, double shoes.

And it was very difficult to work in this on a regular basis for hours at a time.

It affected your ability to concentrate.

I know one physician who actually did his own blood gas. He found out his PCO2 was 60. His PO2 was 60. So he had a pretty good

explanation of why we were irritable and miserable in this equipment. So trying to then manage the

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