Abstract

  In December 2019, there has been an outbreak of pneumonia caused by novel coronavirus in Hubei province of China. On 11 February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially named the new coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Despite guidelines, surgeons feel almost as if they are in the middle of a war zone, with pressure on the one hand from the hospital to do at least emergency surgery to avoid merited charges of denial of needed care being countered by pressure from medical colleagues and intensive care units to avoid unnecessary exposure to COVID-19. COVID-19 has disrupted surgical diagnosis and treatment work. The epidemic forces us to reflect on our usual diagnosis and treatment work, including the storage of protective materials, to closely examine the problems of aerosol and pneumoperitoneum during endoscopic surgery, and, perhaps, to think of ways of reducing unneeded surgical procedures. This short communication, from the point of view of surgeons in the United States and China, will attempt to provide guidance for determining when surgical procedures should be performed and how to approach surgery with patients who are either likely to have COVID-19 infections or have actually been shown to be positive by laboratory testing. Soon, we will likely return to the operating room armed with greater wisdom.

Keywords: Covid-19; Corona Virus; Pandemic; General Surgery; Indication for Surgery; Emergency Surgery; Elective Surgery; Protocols for Surgeries

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Citation

Citation: Eldo E Frezza., et al. “Front Line Surgeons during the Covid-19 Pandemic". Acta Scientific Gastrointestinal Disorders 3.11 (2020): 41-47.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Eldo E Frezza., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.