He was building rockets. Now he’s taking on America’s ventilator shortage

He was building rockets. Now he’s taking on America’s ventilator shortage

As the coronavirus outbreak spread into the United States, Dr. Brian Wong, a plastic surgeon at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center, wanted to know what doctors on the front lines could do if they ran out of ventilators. In March, Wong organized daily conference calls on Zoom to brainstorm ideas with a couple of his colleagues, and they adopted the name Bridge Ventilator Consortium. Soon, medical professionals from all over the country began dialing in. … “I was amazed.” Dr. Govind Rajan, an anesthesiologist at UCI, said. “They took all these ideas, synthesized them and they put it together very fast — which is what is critical right now.