Letter: Maintaining Neurosurgical Resident Education and Safety During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: David P. Bray, Emory University; Geoffrey P. Stricsek, Emory University; James Malcolm, Emory University; Juanmarco Gutierrez, Emory University; Alexander Greven, Emory University; Daniel Barrow, Emory University; Gerald Rodts Jr., Emory University; Matthew Gary, Emory University; Daniel Refai, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2020-08-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc.
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2020 by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/neuros/nyaa164
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Neurosurgery
• Volume: 87
• Issue: 2
• Start Page: E189
• End Page: E191
• Grant/Funding Information: None declared
• Keywords: Neurosciences & Neurology; Clinical Neurology; Surgery; Science & Technology; Life Sciences & Biomedicine
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Medicine and Surgery; Biology, Neuroscience; Health Sciences, Public Health

Abstract

Novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has had a drastic impact upon our ability to impart neurosurgical care for our patients, as others have highlighted in a recently published letter in your journal.1 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.2 National and international governing bodies have embraced “social distancing” and “shelter-in-place” paradigms to lower the rate of person-to-person transmission of COVID-19, and “flatten the curve” of new diagnoses.3-5 However, despite aggressive attempts to lower viral transmission, epidemiologists expect a long-term disruption of our “normal” pattern of delivering medical care, on the order of months to years.6 Additionally, hospitals have redeployed surgical residents into critical care and emergency medicine practices to increase access to care.7,8 While the 7 yr of residency and fellowship is long; even 3 mo of change to the existing state of neurosurgical care will have far-reaching effects on resident and fellow training. We wish to share our initial experience at Emory University Medical Center, a high-volume, tertiary, urban medical center in providing the sometime competing needs to (1) protect residents and fellows from illness, (2) provide emergent and urgent neurosurgical care, (3) utilize Telemedicine to maintain continuity of care, (4) assist the larger medical community, and (5) continue neurosurgical education in novel ways.