Bariatric surgeons' experiences of working in the first year of the pandemic

Abstract

Background:The first year of the Covid-19 pandemic saw drastic changes to bariatric surgical practice, including postponement of procedures, altered patient care and impacting on the role of bariatric surgeons. The consequences of this both personally and professionally amongst bariatric surgeons has not as yet been explored. Aims:The aim of this research was to understand bariatric surgeons' perspectives of working during the first year of the pandemic to explore the self-reported personal and professional impact.Methods: Using a retrospective, two phased, study design with global participants recruited from closed, bariatric surgical units. The first phase used a qualitative thematic analytic framework to identify salient areas of importance to surgeons.Themes informed the construction of an on-line, confidential survey to test the potential generalizability of the interview findings with a larger representative population from the global bariatric surgical community.Findings: Findings of the study revealed that the first year of the pandemic had a detrimental effect on bariatric surgeons both personally and professionally globally.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.