Professor Graham Law of CaHRU was part of a stellar line up with Professor Gina Agarwal (Professor of Family Medicine, McMaster University, Canada), Dr Michael Redlener (Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, New York, US) and Professor Chris Ryther (Professor of Paramedicine at American River College, Sacramento, US) to present a panel discussing ‘International perspectives on EMS and COVID-19‘ at the 999 EMS Research Forum Conference 2021 which took place on Tuesday 23 March 2021. The panel session was chaired by Professor Niro Siriwardena in his role as a member of the 999EMS Forum and the conference steering committee.
The session began with Prof Agarwal who leads the Community Paramedicine Research Team at McMaster, speaking about the 
effect of the pandemic and lockdown on ambulance calls in Ontario, Canada and the innovations in community paramedicine taking place there. Professor Law followed this by discussing mental health, alcohol and substance use during COVID-19, comparing ambulance attendances in the UK and Canada. Dr Redlener described the experience of the EMS response to cardiac arrest in New York City and the effect of a change in termination of resuscitation policy. Finally, Professor Ryther, a practising 
paramedic and paramedic educator discussed the impact of the pandemic on teaching and learning during the pandemic.
The session finished with questions from the audience to all the presenters. To see the presentation click here.