Shahin Shirzad, Clinical Instructor of Emergency Medicine, will be featured prominently in the series. Photo credit: Erich Saide
Several UBC Medicine faculty members and residents will play major roles in a six-part television series that chronicles the tension and challenges of a Level 1 trauma centre.
Emergency Room: Life and Death at VGH will premiere on the Knowledge Network Jan. 21 at 9 pm, with subsequent episodes appearing on consecutive Tuesday nights.
The documentary was filmed over several months at Vancouver General Hospital’s Emergency Department, which last year had 80,000 patients come through its doors. Viewers will see a variety of cases, including a young traveler stricken with malaria, a skier who has taken a serious fall, and a stabbing victim with a butcher knife protuding from his chest.
“The series showcases the teamwork and camaraderie that is so vital to an emergency department,” said Doug McKnight, the Head of VGH’s Emergency Department and a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine. “And, as VGH is a teaching hospital, we are also especially proud they were able to create an entire episode around the level of teaching and training that takes place here.”
In addition to Dr. McKnight, other faculty members playing key roles in the film are Clinical Instructors Andrew Campbell, Shahin Shirzad and Jonathan Theoret.
The film also spends significant time tracking the activities of nurses, paramedics, a social worker and a respiratory therapist.
Several UBC residents also appear in the film: Mohammadali Khorasani (General Surgery), Jason Strelzow (Orthopaedics), Phillippe Pinard (Family Practice), David Migneault (Emergency Medicine), Robert Cheyne (Emergency Medicine) and Jonathan Misskey (Surgery).
In addition, faculty members from other departments or divisions, including Hematology, Surgery, Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Thereapeutics, Infectious Diseases and Oncology, play brief supporting roles.