Anton Helman for the EM cases podcast here.

To all of you brave and dedicated EM providers listening,

I sincerely hope that you're managing well in this COVID crisis.

Whether you're struggling with PPE shortages or being bombarded with really sick COVID patients,

having to share ventilators or seeing low volumes of patients currently but anxiously waiting for

the oncoming storm. I want you to remember that we are all in this together and that the incredible

strength, resilience, and camaraderie of the global EM community will see us through. If you're

having trouble, please reach out to your supportive colleagues,

or to me personally, for that matter, I can be reached just about any time at Anton

at emergency medicine cases.com. All right. Now on to managing surge capacity in the COVID era.

No matter where you practice emergency medicine, there will be capacity problems.

Even if we flatten the COVID-19 curve, there'll be a huge load on the systems that

exceed our capacity.

So I've invited someone who you may remember from a previous podcast on disaster medicine

that we released in 2017,

Dr. Daniel Kallek, he is an expert in disaster preparedness.

Dr. Kolic, thank you so much for agreeing to be on EM cases to talk about surge capacity when it comes to COVID-19.

Dr. Kolic, can you just remind our listeners about who you are in your professional background?

Sure. I am an emergency physician currently working in Burlington, Ontario.

I'm the chair of the Cape Disaster Committee and Executive director of the Center for Excellence in Emergency

Preparedness.

Fantastic.

...