Dear all,
COVID-19 holds our whole world in a stranglehold.
Unlike other countries we were lucky to have the opportunity to brace before things got out of hand.
We still don’t know how hard the virus is going to hit us but at least most of our hospitals did their best to be prepared for the attack..
We are all set. Or not. Only time will tell.
With this post, we want to reach out to you and offer you some background information as well as practical tips from within the surgical community. Check this page regularly as it will be updated along with expanding global knowledge and experiences.
Belgium
- Website of Sciensano: current epidemiological situation
- Website of Sciensano with recommendations and guidelines on
- UZ Leuven made its instruction videos (>3h) on general and more specific aspects on care for COVID-19/lung care patients available for the wide ommunity of HCP's. Find the indormation here (Dutch only).
- Want to know more in depth on COVID-19? The KU Leuven Rega Institute works continuously on a so-called living document sharing the overview of information available to support the development of medical countermeasures and interventions against COVID-19. Check it out here (94+ pages)!
France
- Sociéte Francaise de Chirurgie Toracique et Cardio-Vasculaire
- propositions for care of patients planned for
Spain
As you might know, Spain is a number of days ahead of us and in several areas, the situation is already out of control.
The Spanish association of coloproctology has worked hard to produce - in only a couple of weeks - guidelines for surgery on COVID-19 positive patients.
Please find the English and updated recommendations from April 8th 2020 here.
Maybe these guidelines can help to control the damage in your hospital.
The initial texts below are in Spanish of course but for those of us who don’t speak Spanish Google translate works well nowadays.
Hope this can help.
Graciès to our Spanish colleagues for their tremendous effort.
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_1.pdf
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_2.pdf
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_3.pdf
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_4.pdf
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_5.pdf
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_6.pdf
EAES
The website of the EAES has also issued statements on COVID-19 on their website https://eaes.eu/category/covid-19-statements/.
SAGES
RESOURCES FOR SMOKE & GAS EVACUATION DURING OPEN, LAPAROSCOPIC, AND ENDOSCOPIC PROCEDURES
SAGES AND EAES RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING SURGICAL RESPONSE TO COVID-19 CRISIS
ISDE
Management of Upper-GI Endoscopy and Surgery in COVID-19 Outbreak
CTS.net
CTS.net published an overview page on cardiothoracic surgery in COVID-19. Check the start page here.
ERS
The European Respiratory Society launches a blog line on COVID-19, with amongs others a document on managing and caring for patients with COVID-19, which was prepared by a team of healthcare professionals from the Italian Respiratory Society and Italian Thoracic Society; this could be usefull for us surgeons when we could be deployed to COVID-19 units. Check also the main ERS blog on COVID-19 here.
PanSurg
The group of Imperial College London has geard up as well on a new platform www.pansurg.org and organises since the past couple of days testimonials of surgeons and health care workers who are currently battling for their patients, and are willing to share their experience of only the last two weeks in webinars. Information is offered through a forum and webinars with surgeons working in the front line, e.g. with the first two webinars with colleagues from Italy.
American College of Surgeons
ACS has also made a dedicated sub-website, with an overview of information per (surgical) topic - albeit some of these are oriented towards the Northern American surgical practice: https://www.facs.org/covid-19
Annals of surgery:
Minimally invasive surgery and the novel coronavirus outbreak: lessons learned in China and Italy
AIS (Advances In Surgery channel)
Dedicated channel on COVID 19: https://covid19.aischannel.com/
Overview of guidelines of societies: https://covid19.aischannel.com/guidelines-from-societies
Be careful and try to stay healthy,
Charles de Gheldere M.D. FEBS.Gen.surg.
President RBSS