For the longest time, I was completely unable to separate the idea of what used to be called walking pneumonia

with a vision of Christopher Walken with a cough and fever.

But as potent as that visual is, as I begin to practice, it was replaced by the legion of patients who suffer from what we have now termed,

and I would venture to say more appropriately termed,

community acquired pneumonia. Cap checks all the key boxes for the emergency physician. It's common.

Pneumonia is actually the third leading reason for hospital admission. It can be deadly,

the leading cause of sepsis and death from infection, and we can do something

about it. That combination of characteristics means we should be very, very interested in getting

this one right, which begs the question, do we get it right? Today we'll be figuring out how

something seemingly so simple as pneumonia could be so troublesome to perfect.

Are you on team overtreat or team underdiagnose?

Who's ready for a good old-fashioned EM cases humbling?

So the role of the emergency physician, as always, is really fivefold when it comes to cap.

One, to stabilize sick patients. Two, to get comes to cap. 1. To stabilize sick patients.

2. To get the right diagnosis.

Rule in the right diagnosis, but also rule out other life for limb-threatening diagnoses.

Number three, to initiate the correct best treatment with the information at hand.

Number four, to prognosticate and appropriately decide on disposition of patients.

And number five, to be healthcare and antimicrobial stewards.

So, with these roles in mind, it's my pleasure and honor to introduce my colleague

at North York General Hospital, a guy who definitely is in my top five best EM clinicians I've ever seen.

His clinical acumen really is mind-blowing.

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