id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
cord-345329-195cqp6s	Heymann, Eric P	How the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated the importance of emergency medicine, and its vital role as a pillar of the healthcare system	2020-05-23		.txt	text/plain	818	34	53	The false sense of security afforded by the distance to Wuhan having led authorities to observe rather to plan, the system, suddenly faced with a potential surge of infected patients, turned to EDs for the management of suspected cases, as the rest of the healthcare system was not prepared (to deal with such cases). EPs, due in part to their training and experience, became leaders in the acute response, establishing standards of care, and, with regular feedback to governing authorities, helped prepare the healthcare system to deal with suspected cases, by rapidly recognising and lobbying for an increase in infrastructure, paramedical and medical equipment, as well as the need to increase national pharmaceutical stocks. Aside from reaffirming the importance of an EM specialty (and the need for a dedicated training pathway), COVID-19 has unfortunately also validated concerns that had previously been raised by EPs worldwide about the ability of crowded EDs to handle a surge of patients in a mass disaster or pandemic.	./cache/cord-345329-195cqp6s.txt	./txt/cord-345329-195cqp6s.txt