ABSTRACT
Background: The literature highlights a decrease in surgical treated appendicitis with an increased severity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of COVID lockdown on the population with appendicitis comparing clinical-pathologic data and outcome in two matching period (prepandemic and pandemic era). Methods: A retrospective analysis of patients admitted to two community urban hospital in Rome with diagnosis of acute appendicitis (AA) before and after the COVID-19 pandemic was performed. We compared patients patients with acute appendicitis in three groups named A (pre-COVID), B (early pandemic), and C (late pandemic). We evaluate the differences between the three groups in terms of onset of symptoms and severity, procedure difficulty, conversion rate, and short-term outcome. Results: A total of 310 patients were identified. The time interval from onset of symptoms to arrival in the emergency department was significantly longer in both pandemic group;there was also a significantly longer time to surgery comparing to group A. The risk of complicated AA was higher in both pandemic groups. A significantly higher grade of difficulty was detected in both COVID-groups. However, no differences were observed in conversion rate. Postoperative complications rate showed no significant difference among all three groups. No patients was tested positive for SARSCoV-2 postoperatively. Conclusion: AA treatment was comparable to pre-COVID period in-hospital presurgery stay and early postoperative outcome. With an accurate respect of pandemic protocol is possible to maintain a high and safe standard of care for patients with acute appendicitis. Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by on behalf of the Associazione Chirurghi Ospedalieri Italiani and Wolters Kluwer.
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 epidemic was accompanied by the resurgence of a positivist mentality. The idea that science is a human enterprise and, therefore, a fallible one seems to have suddenly disappeared from public discourse. In the second half of the twentieth century, positivism seemed out of fashion, while so-called “critical rationalism” had become the dominant paradigm. The situation now seems to be reversed. Faced with a largely unknown phenomenon, physicians and biologists presented their theories as definitive and unappealable truths. Anyone – even experts – who raised doubts about the plausibility of these theories or the effectiveness of the remedies imposed by the political authorities was immediately censored. This article proposes a reconsideration of critical rationalism, presenting it as a form of gnoseological fallibilism and a forgotten lesson of history. The most famous representative of this epistemological approach is perhaps Karl Popper, whose ideas I will briefly touch upon. However, I will focus above all on Gaston Bachelard’s philosophical thought, to show that critical rationalism is not the theory of a single scholar, but a broad cultural movement that has emerged both in the Anglosphere and in the areas of the Romance languages. Besides, Bachelard’s thought is important because it anticipates themes and ways of analysis of the sociology of science. Indeed, it shows how the cumbersome presence of economic interests in the world of contemporary science constitutes an epistemological obstacle and not simply an ethical problem. This is crucial to understand the response of political institutions, the media, and common citizens to the pandemic emergency. © 2022, History of Ideas Research Centre, Jagiellonian University Krakow. All rights reserved.