Introduction: As severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spreads across the globe, physicians face the challenges of a contagious pandemic including which patients to isolate, how to conserve personal protective equipment, and who to test. The current protocol at our hospital is to place anyone with new cough, dyspnea, or fever into airborne and contact precautions and consider them for testing. Unfortunately, the symptomatic presentations of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are proving more variable than previously thought. Case Report: Our case of COVID-19 presented with headache and then progressed to a meningitis-like illness with co-existing shingles rash. Conclusion: COVID-19 can have a variety of initial presentations that are not the classic respiratory symptoms and fever. These presenting symptoms of COVID-19 can include a meningitis-like illness, as our case report indicates. The wide variety of presentations of COVID-19 may warrant widespread testing to identify cases, protect healthcare workers, and prevent the spread of this pandemic.

Emergency medicine (EM) in most of Europe is a much newer specialty than in the United States. Until recently, emergency departments (EDs) in Norway were staffed with unsupervised interns, leading to a government report in 2008 that called for change. From the establishment of the Norwegian Society for Emergency Medicine in 2010 to the creation of the specialty in 2017 and the approval of the first emergency physician in Norway in 2019, our review article describes how a small group of physicians were able to work with politicians and the media to get an emergency medicine specialty approved despite resistance from a much larger group of existing specialists. Norway faced many of the same obstacles as the United States did with implementing the specialty 60 years ago. This article serves as a review of the conflict that may ensue when enacting a change in public policy and a resource to those countries that have yet to implement an emergency medicine specialty.

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Background: It has been documented that women are under-represented as speakers at emergency medicine conferences globally. This lack of opportunity is likely contributing to the gender gap of women in academic and leadership positions. Methods: The Gender-Specific Issues Special Interest Group (GSI-SIG) of the International Federation of Emergency Medicine (IFEM) has analyzed the gender distribution of invited speakers, plenary speakers, and organizing committees from its last three International Conferences on Emergency Medicine in 2016, 2018, and 2019. Results: Men comprised 75% (range 57-92%) of organizing committees, 69% (67-70%) of plenary speakers, and 78% (range 75-81%) of invited speakers. Conclusion: The percentage of women speakers at the IFEM International Conferences on Emergency Medicine is low; even below the percentage of women emergency medicine physicians. By understanding these data and their consequences, changes can be made to close this gender gap and create more equitable opportunities for women and their career advancement.