For Dr. Casey Smolarz and his staff at the emergency room of Baptist Health-Conway, he said being properly trained has helped them prepare adequately enough for a crisis such as COVID-19.
“We continue to prepare for it on a daily basis,” Smolarz said. “I feel like we are very prepared to take on the influx of patients.
“We have a triage outside to help decrease exposure to patients who are in the emergency department. If they have flulike symptoms, they are seen in the ambulance bay by a physician and are either treated or tested [for COVID-19], based on the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and Department of Health guidelines.”
He said he meets by phone with the Baptist-Conway leadership team twice a day to discuss the updates that the Department of Health puts out and “how we are going to continue to prepare.” He said it does take a few days to get the test results back, and those patients are then contacted by the Department of Health. Smolarz said it hasn’t been too stressful for the most part.
“This is what we are trained to do,” Smolarz said. “Everybody is ready and prepared to take care of these patients.
“The community has been great and very supportive of us, which helps the morale of the whole department.”
Smolarz, the emergency room medical director at Baptist Health-Conway, was named Physician of the Year by the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce at the fourth annual North Metro Healthcare Awards on Feb. 20.
“It was, honestly, a tremendous honor,” Smolarz said. “As many different positions and providers in the medical community that we have, to be given this award, it was a true honor.
“It is probably due to all the hard work and dedication that I have put into this position.”
Smolarz has been the medical director for the emergency room since it opened in September 2016. He is technically an employee of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, as UAMS has the contract to provide the positions and providers for the emergency department at Baptist-Conway.
“I wanted to get into community practice after being in the academic setting for several years,” Smolarz said. “I wanted to broaden my skills and provide care to the community.
“Conway really needed that second hospital to provide care to the patients. I enjoy the interaction with patients and the staff, and I enjoy taking care of patients and then seeing them out in the community once they have gotten better.”
Smolarz grew up in Texarkana, graduating from Pleasant Grove High School in 1999. He graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in biology. He went to medical school in Galveston, Texas, and did his residency at UAMS. He said he wanted to come back to central Arkansas because he still has family in the area.
“I always wanted to live close to my family,” he said. “My parents still live in Texarkana, and I wanted to be close to my brothers. It was important to me to be located close by.”
When Smolarz finished his residency at UAMS in 2010, he stayed on as faculty in the emergency department there.
Dr. Rawle “Tony” Seupaul, the chief clinical officer at UAMS, has known Smolarz for a little over seven years. Seupaul said Smolarz is a quiet leader and a superb physician.
“I have watched him grow over the past seven years,” Seupaul said. “Casey is an incredible individual and not afraid to work. … He leads by example. No one works harder for the community in Conway than Casey does. He just has that kind of leadership.
“He has a great team that he has made even better for every year that they have been together.”
When Smolarz was growing up, his dad was an orthopedic surgeon, and Smolarz was always at the clinic and around the hospital.
“I knew all along that is what I wanted to do,” Smolarz said. “When I was in medical school, I worked in emergency medicine, and ultimately, I knew that is what I wanted to do the rest of my career.”
When Smolarz started as the emergency-room director, he said the ER didn’t have the services it does now.
“We had a few beds that were open on the second floor, but now we have expanded to the third floor to have a place for patients,” he said.
“We are very proud of our patient-satisfaction scores,” Smolarz said. “That is one of the most important things as I look back, because it is important to provide the service in such a way that patients feel like they are important and truly feel they are being cared for.”
Smolarz said he is also proud of the way the hospital has grown in general and of being on the ground floor of a brand-new hospital.
“He understands what needs to be done and doesn’t panic under pressure,” Seupaul said of Smolarz. “Casey is one of those guys that you want on your team and are happy to see him come work with you — it is reassuring.
“He deserves all the recognition and accolades.”
Smolarz and his wife, Nicole, married in November 2013, and they have two kids, a 4-year-old girl, Hadleigh, and a 2-year-old boy, Ryker.
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.