Orthopaedic Surgery during COVID pandemic and consequent Changes in our professional environment

Abstract

The medical profession was thrilled and faced in first line the changes of the society during the coronavirus crisis and pandemic. [1,2,3,4,5,6] The world experienced stupor and slowdown of major economic activities. Political and social regulations were imposed. All medical specialties had to adapt and observations from our corresponding members and authors worldwide pointed out the changes in our ways of managing different medical conditions including emergency, trauma, transplantation [7] and tumor [8], cases that could not wait. The lockdown and changes in the workflow of medical centers created new challenges for the teams in all specialties, mainly in centers responsible for trauma or tumor and that were supposed to manage patients with unknown infection status. Anesthesiologists were at risk as they were supposed to act on the upper respiratory ways, intubate and ventilate cases with unknown viral charges. This resulted in casualties and morbidity by viral infection in several colleagues and some colleagues sadly and tragically lost their lives. The medical profession paid a high tribute to the pandemic with lethal cases and major stress exposure for the colleagues in the teams. [9,10,11] A special issue was released in August 2020 and included scientific reports from colleagues working in pandemic conditions [12]. All papers showed that the activity decreased, by one side because of the lockdown that kept industry and car traffic at the lowest rhythm but also because hospital regulations that imposed work shortages and security issues. Scheduled procedures were postponed but also "not life threatening trauma" resulting in unfair access

Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Orthopedic Surgery in Three Centers from Romania

“…The COVID-19 (corona virus 2019) pandemic had an unprecedented impact on our lives. Starting at the beginning of 2020, the entire world was forced to quickly adjust to using personal protective equipment (PPE) and physical distancing [ 1 ]. As the disease continued to spread, the high number of cases put an enormous burden on the healthcare systems.…”

“…As the disease continued to spread, the high number of cases put an enormous burden on the healthcare systems. As a direct consequence, many elective procedures were cancelled and all available resources were relocated to emergencies and COVID-19 patients [ 1 , 2 , 3 ].…”

“…The orthopedic specialty was one of the most seriously hit due to the large number of postponable elective procedures and major surgeries with high resource requirements. Worldwide, joint replacements in particular were stopped and orthopedic departments were converted toCOVID-19 facilities [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. However, while this process followed similar guidelines, it had significant regional variability [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ].…”

“…In an effort to stop the spread of the virus, a state of emergency was declared on 16 March. To prepare for the treatment of a potential surge in the number of cases, following global trends, elective procedures were cancelled and many orthopedic departments were converted to COVID-19 facilities [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. The first wave of the disease was kept under control and the lockdown ended on 14 May.…”

Useful and useless publications measured by bibliometrics and scientometrics in orthopaedic surgery. Are the relevance of a journal and publication metrics useful enough for the scientific promotion of surgeons?

“…One recent example is the massive data production on Covid-19 epidemic with hundreds of thousands of papers published in various languages. One may well wonder if this massive media attention ever happened in the past and, if so, if this has been finally proven to be beneficial or appropriate [22][23][24][25][26].…”