Putting emergency physicians in the story
As COVID-19 arrived, VACEP’s emergency physicians were on the front line, and reporters needed to hear from them.
In early March 2020 we booked two emergency physicians on a local morning show. When lockdowns hit, we fielded and placed interview requests from outlets including CBS This Morning and the BBC.
Coverage that took readers inside Virginia’s emergency rooms, including a Richmond Times-Dispatch feature on emergency doctors pushing past their fears to treat patients.
The need
We have worked with the Virginia College of Emergency Physicians for years. Most of that work was steady and familiar: advocacy before the General Assembly, member communications and website updates. In 2018, for example, we helped the organization’s president write an op-ed that the Richmond Times-Dispatch published.
Then came the coronavirus. Almost overnight, our client was on the front line of a growing pandemic, and the people who knew most about what was happening in Virginia’s emergency rooms were VACEP’s members. Reporters needed to hear from them.
Our approach
When much of the country first started taking the novel coronavirus seriously, in late February and early March 2020, we pitched two emergency physicians to a local morning show. On March 5 we squeezed into a small green room with several other guests, and the physicians went on air to talk about the emerging threat. Looking back, we knew very little then.
Once lockdowns hit, the requests came to us. Our email and phones lit up with interest from outlets including CBS This Morning in New York and the BBC in the United Kingdom. Our job was to field those requests and connect reporters with the right physicians.
Not everything went to plan. The BBC interview with a Virginia physician was scheduled, then had to be delayed when the British prime minister went into intensive care with COVID-19 symptoms. It was a strange moment: a Virginia client bumped by the health of a head of government.
The outcome
One of our favorite client stories ever came out of that period. In the Richmond Times-Dispatch, reporter Eric Kolenich and photographer Bob Brown took readers inside Virginia’s emergency rooms and showed what it was like for doctors to push past their own fears to treat coronavirus patients. VACEP’s president, Scott Hickey, was interviewed in the paper about the effort to fight the virus.
We’re proud of the work. We’re prouder of the physicians who did theirs.