Hear how leaders from across the surgical oncology community are managing patients during the COVID-19 pandemic in SSO’s three-part video panel discussions moderated by SSO President, James R. Howe, MD. All three videos are available in SSO’s learning management system, ExpertEd@SSO.
Panelists will compare and contrast the impact of COVID-19 on their daily practice, discuss strategies for managing patients and how they are adapting to new protocols.
Video 1: Russell Berman, MD, New York University Langone Health and Julie Ann Sosa, MD, University of California San Francisco.
“All of the protective measures we put in place on Friday by Saturday and Sunday were completely lost, and in fact there was no place we could consider to be COVID free,” Russell Berman, MD.
“We’ve done a lot of 3D printing at UCSF, in terms of printing shields and later swabs to supplement or augment our PPE stores. The same was true for our bio hub, which has been involved with a lot of innovation and discovery around SARS-CoV-2 testing,” Julie Ann Sosa, MD.
Video 2: Mitchell Posner, MD, UChicago Medicine and Jennifer Tseng, MD, Boston Medical Center.
“I do have to say, you can see in the best of times and the worst of times, and it’s the worst of times, you really see what people are made of,” Jennifer Tseng, MD.
“We are coming alive again, we need to, our cancer patients need us to do their procedures as part of their multimodality care. But we are continually sensitive to their fears, the fears of our residents and fellows, as well as our workforce,” Mitchell Posner, MD.
Video 3: Emad Kandil, MD, Tulane University Medical Center and John Barnwell, MD, Detroit Medical Center.
“Things exploded in late March and the city continued to post triple-digit increases and daily cases through April 11, and that’s across the entire city,” Emad Kandil, MD.
“I was told we had the third highest COVID inpatient hospital rate in the world. I have never seen such mayhem in my career. It was frightening,” John Barnwell, MD.
SSO Partner Society Leaders on the Frontlines Across the Globe
Professor Dominico D’Ugo, MD
Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli
In regards of the surgical oncology activity planning, we initially feared a possible delay in the surgical treatment of cancer patients due to the reduction of available beds and of the active operating rooms. For this reason, we rearranged the surgery waiting list, focusing it almost exclusively on the treatment of surgical oncology patients. This allowed to maintain a standard surgical oncology activity with no significant delays.
Hector Martinez Said, MD
National Cancer Institute, Mexico
If the patient has comorbidities that puts them at risk of severe COVID-19, patients are referred according to their oncological risk to neoadjuvant treatments or essential delays (the shortest possible time), as well as the process of very high aerosolization and exposure to body fluids, the preference has been to postpone as long as possible, as long as the oncological risk allows.
Wael M.S.A. Gawad, MD, PhD
National Cancer Institute NCI-Cairo University, Egypt
Our institution is a tertiary referral center where almost all advanced and technically challenging difficult cases are treated. Given the remarkable number of referred complicated cases, the major challenges were to prioritize and reschedule patients according to their surgical urgency based on disease site and stage either in OR or outpatient basis.
Professor Do Joong Park, MD, PhD
Seoul National University Hospital, Republic of Korea
Treatment of cancer patients has not changed significantly. Mainly surgeries for patients with mild disease other than cancer were delayed, but surgeries for relatively severe cancer patients are being performed without significant delay. However, the number of surgeries for early cancer has been reduced due to decrease of health screening examination.