ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted lives and indelibly impacted the practice of medicine since emerging as a pandemic in March 2020. For neurosurgery departments throughout the United States, the pandemic has created unique challenges across subspecialties in devising methods of triage, workflow, and operating room safety. Located in New York City, at the early epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis, the Weill Cornell Medicine Department of Neurological Surgery was disrupted and challenged in many ways, requiring adaptations in clinical operations, workforce management, research, and education. Through our department's collective experience, we offer a glimpse at how our faculty and administrators overcame obstacles, and transformed in the process, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Delivery of Health Care , Education, Distance , Neurosurgery/organization & administration , Neurosurgical Procedures , Teleworking , Academic Medical Centers , Biomedical Research , Faculty, Medical , Health Personnel , Hospital Departments , Humans , Neurosurgery/education , Neurosurgery/methods , New York City , Operating Rooms , Personnel Management , SARS-CoV-2 , Triage , Webcasts as Topic , WorkflowABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The coronavirus identified in 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic effectively ended all major spine educational conferences in the first half of 2020. In response, the authors formed a "virtual" case-based conference series directed at delivering spine education to health care providers around the world. We herein share the technical logistics, early participant feedback, and future direction of this initiative. METHODS: The Virtual Global Spine Conference (VGSC) was created in April 2020 by a multiinstitutional team of spinal neurosurgeons and a neuroradiologist. Biweekly virtual meetings were established wherein invited national and international spine care providers would deliver case-based presentations on spine and spine surgery-related conditions via teleconferencing. Promotion was coordinated through social media platforms such as Twitter. RESULTS: VGSC recruited more than 1000 surgeons, trainees, and other specialists, with 50-100 new registrants per week thereafter. An early survey to the participants, with 168 responders, indicated that 92% viewed the content as highly valuable to their practice and 94% would continue participating post COVID-19. Participants from the United States (29%), Middle East (16%), and Europe (12%) comprised the majority of the audience. Approximately 52% were neurosurgeons, 18% orthopedic surgeons, and 6% neuroradiologists. A majority of participants were physicians (55%) and residents/fellows (21%). CONCLUSIONS: The early success of the VGSC reflects a strong interest in spine education despite the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing guidelines. There is widespread opinion, backed by our own survey results, that many clinicians and trainees want to see "virtual" education continue post COVID-19.