Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Practice of Hand and Upper Extremity Surgeons

Qazi, Uzair; Sutton, Julianne; Farner, Scott; Bhandari, Laxminarayan

doi:10.7759/cureus.12072

Cited by 3 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…A survey by the Kleinert Society of members, with responses predominantly from the USA, covered a similar time period in the first COVID-19 wave to our survey. It showed similar reduced clinic and elective surgery volumes 36 . However, contrary to our findings, telemedicine was not widely used and felt to have multiple drawbacks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic: A survey of UK and European hand surgery units

Shaw

Holmes

Jansen

et al. 2022

Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic: A survey of UK and European hand surgery units

Shaw

Holmes

Jansen

et al. 2022

Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery

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“…This number is relatively low, given reports across the world, which shows that the average response rate to questionnaires sent by e-mail is 48%. 10 However, among similar Brazilian and international studies performed on hand surgeons and those with other specialties that sent out questionnaires during the pandemic in 2020, Gomes et al 4 obtained a response rate of 18%, Stirma et al 11 had a response rate of 5.7%, and Qazi et al 12 obtained a response rate of 15%. Our sample of 25% was representative of the total regional distribution of specialists in our population; 55.2% were in the southeast, 16.7% were in the south, 13.3% were in the northeast, 8.6% were in the central west, and 7.6% were in the north.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Impact of COVID-19 on the Work, Health, and Quality of Life of Brazilian Hand Surgeons

Cagnolati

Andrade

Mandarano-Filho

et al. 2022

Hand (New York, N,Y.)

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Background: To evaluate the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the clinical practice, health, and quality of life of Brazilian hand surgeons when only essential services and emergency procedures were being provided. Method: A questionnaire of 50 questions was sent to members of the Brazilian Society of Hand Surgery addressing work and life routines before the pandemic and during the initial quarantine period from April to August 2020. Results: Two hundred ten hand surgeons answered the questionnaire; 55.2% lived in the southeast region and worked in the capital and metropolitan regions, in both the private and public systems. Thirty-eight percent of the sample had other sources of income besides medicine, and due to a drop of 50% or more in the volume of consultations and surgeries, one-third had to apply for financial loans or access personal savings, and 69% made financial cuts in their domestic and life routines. More than 40% gained weight and stopped doing physical activities, while 20% lost weight and started physical activities. Approximately 30% were diagnosed with COVID-19, 92% of whom had mild symptoms and quarantined at home, and 89% had psychological symptoms such as anxiety, fear, insecurity, and insomnia. Conclusions: Coronavirus disease 2019 had a significant impact on the lives of Brazilian hand surgeons by drastically reducing the number of consultations and surgical procedures, generating not only financial difficulties but also changes in the exercise routine, changes in body weight, associated psychological symptoms, and changes in the family/life routine.

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“…Healthcare workers were not immune to this tragic event, nor were hand surgery centers. All around the world, rapid changes occurred in the organization of wards and activities to adapt to new necessities [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. In best-case scenarios, hand surgeons were required to adapt to a reduction of hand surgery activity, whereas, in other cases, some colleagues had to change jobs to help in COVID wards.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, Atia et al [17] described checking up on patients less frequently, whereas most of authors used telemedicine to follow up with their patients [12,14,[22][23][24]. This is a method that proved its accuracy [25] and found satisfaction among patients [10,22,26], whereas surgeons had frequent issues [10,22]. The authors did not use telemedicine, and Toia et al [11] as well as Leti Acciaro et al [27] confirmed it might be an issue in Italy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, being from a teaching hospital, it is difficult not to speak of the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic might have had on resident physicians. As in many other hospitals [10,11,14,19], the authors had all their elective surgery canceled during the first months after the beginning of the lockdown, and still highly diminished during the year that followed, creating a significant lack in young hand surgeons' formative experience. In some cases [9], residents were allowed limited access to the hospital.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

One Year of COVID-19: Lessons Learned in a Hand Trauma Center

Covino

Fulchignoni

Pietramala

et al. 2022

JCM

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2020 will be remembered worldwide as the year of COVID-19 outbreak. The onset of this pandemic abruptly changed everybody’s life and, in a particular manner, doctors’ lives. Our hand surgery department became rapidly one of the first COVID-19-specialized wards in Italy, impacting considerably the authors’ routines and activities. In this paper, the authors focus on how the demographics of patients with hand trauma changed and how they had to modify their activity. The authors retrospectively took into consideration all patients reaching their emergency department (ED) with hand trauma between 9 March 2020 (the day of the beginning of the first lockdown in Italy) and 8 March 2021 and compared them to those who reached the ED in the three previous years. Authors have analyzed the number of patients, their gender and age, the severity of their trauma, where the trauma occurred, the type of lesion, the percentage of patients who underwent surgery, and the percentage of patients who had an emergency admission. In the last year, the number of patients reaching the ED for a hand trauma has been reduced by two thirds (975 patients during the past year), the mean age of those patients has slightly increased, the severity of cases has increased, places of trauma and type of lesions have changed, and, lastly, the percentage of patients needing surgery who were admitted immediately has increased. This paper shows how the type of patients reaching the ED changed and discusses how surgeons evolved and modified their habits in treating those patients during the first lockdown and the year that followed.

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Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Practice of Hand and Upper Extremity Surgeons

Cited by 3 publications

References 13 publications

Adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic: A survey of UK and European hand surgery units

Adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic: A survey of UK and European hand surgery units

Impact of COVID-19 on the Work, Health, and Quality of Life of Brazilian Hand Surgeons

One Year of COVID-19: Lessons Learned in a Hand Trauma Center

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