Impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on surgical practice - Part 1
Ahmed Al‐Jabira b✉, Ahmed Kerwanb, Maria Nicolac, Zaid Alsafid, Mehdi Khand, Catrin Sohrabie, Niamh O’Neille, Christos Iosifidise, MF Griffinf, Ginimol Mathewd, Riaz Aghag
- aGKT School of Medical Education, King's College London, United Kingdom. Electronic address: ahmed@ijspg.com
- bGKT School of Medical Education, King's College London, United Kingdom
- cImperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom
- dUCL Medical School, University College London, United Kingdom
- eBarts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom
- fStanford University, Palo Alto, United States
- gBarts Health NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom
- ✉Corresponding author
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Abstract
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in over 4.5 million confirmed cases and over 300,000 deaths. The impact of COVID-19 on surgical practice is widespread, ranging from workforce and staffing issues, procedural prioritisation, viral transmission risk intraoperatively, changes to perioperative practice and ways of working alongside the impact on surgical education and training. Whilst there has been a growing literature base describing the early clinical course of COVID-19 and on aspects of critical care related to treating these patients, there has been a dearth of evidence on how this pandemic will affect surgical practice. This paper seeks to review the current evidence and offers recommendations for changes to surgical practice to minimise the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.