The effects of COVID-19 pandemic on pediatric neurosurgery practice and training in a developing country
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The effects of COVID-19 pandemic on pediatric neurosurgery practice and training in a developing country Keyvan Tayebi Meybodi 1 & Zohreh Habibi 1
&
Farideh Nejat 1
Received: 1 October 2020 / Accepted: 27 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Purpose COVID-19 pandemic has influenced all aspects of societies, with the healthcare being the most affected field. All specialties including neurosurgery are involved, and due to resource limitations, the number of elective surgeries in subspecialized filed has substantially decreased. Herein, we report our practice experience in pediatric neurosurgery in a tertiary hospital during pandemic, and the effects of pandemic on educational issues. Methods All the patients on whom any kind of neurosurgical operation was performed from March to June 2020 were retrospectively collected, and also from the same period in the previous year. Results A total of 111 patients underwent surgery in this period. This figure was 159 patients during the same period in 2019. The total number of surgical cases reduced by 31% compared to the last year. While ventriculoperitoneal shunts and supratentorial tumor were more frequent, there was a considerable reduction in subspecialized educational surgeries like neural tube defects and craniosynostoses. Conclusion CVID-19 pandemic changed all scopes of medical practice and training. Considering the limitation in the available resources, the number of educational cases may decrease in subspecialized disciplines like pediatric neurosurgery. If pandemic continues, alternative measures should be taken to compensate for the shortcoming in technical and practical training. Keywords COVID pandemic . Pediatric neurosurgery . Practice . Training
Introduction COVID-19 is a global problem. First described as pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, it rapidly propagated in the globe as a disastrous cause of morbidity and mortality [12]. Up to now, more than 26 million of cases have been recorded all over the world with more than 850 thousand fatalities (https://www.worldometers.info/ coronavirus/ accessed: 2020/09/07). Since COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020, and pandemic announcement by WHO on 11 March 2020, different papers and guidelines have been published about neurosurgery practice during COVID19 pandemics. All recommendations [1, 6, 8] are in the same direction. Emergent and urgent cases
* Zohreh Habibi [email protected] 1
Department of Pediatric Neurosurgery, Children’s Medical Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1419733151, Iran
should be managed based on clinical indications, while protecting patients and medical staff according to local protocols. Elective surgeries should be postponed until the pandemic being kept under control. Once the pandemic is under control, elective surgeries should be scheduled, following hospital protocols for infection control. Besides the implications of the problem in global health, COVID-19 has been associ
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