Reflecting back to move forward: Lessons learned about COVID-19 safety protocols from pediatric anesthesiologists.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic brought about the immediate need for enhanced safety protocols in health care centers. These protocols had to evolve as knowledge and understanding of the disease quickly broadened. AIMS: Through this study, the researchers aimed to understand the experiences of pediatric anesthesiologists at the Montreal Children's Hospital and the Shriners' Hospital Canada as they navigated the first wave of COVID-19 at their institutions. METHODS: Nine participants from the Montreal Children's Hospital and the Shriners' Hospital were interviewed. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and then analyzed using an applied philosophical hermeneutics approach. FINDINGS: Participants expressed their wish for simple and easy-to-apply protocols while recognizing the challenge of keeping up with evolving knowledge on the disease and its transmission. They pointed to some limitations and unintended consequences of the safety protocols and the system-wide flaws that the COVID-19 pandemic helped bring to light. They described their frustrations with some aspects of the safety protocols, which they at times felt could be more efficient or better suited for their daily practice. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study highlighted the importance of listening to and empowering anesthesiology staff working in the field during crises, the implications of shifting from patient-centered care to community-centered care, and the fine line between sharing as much emerging information as possible and overwhelming staff with information.

The Experiences of People Living With Chronic Pain During a Pandemic: "Crumbling Dreams With Uncertain Futures".

People living with chronic pain experience multiple challenges in their daily activities. Chronic pain is complex and often provokes life circumstances that create increased social isolation. Living with chronic pain during the pandemic may add additional layers of complexity to their daily lives. The researchers endeavored to explore the experiences of people living with chronic pain during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers conducted semi-structured, open-ended interviews about how the pandemic influenced participants' lives. The interviews were recorded and analyzed using an applied philosophical hermeneutics approach. The findings were feeling socially isolated, losing their sense of livinghood, and experiencing augmented stress levels which, in most cases, aggravated their chronic pain. In addition to gaining an in-depth understanding of the needs of people living with chronic pain, these findings may guide policy decisions with the intention of improving health care access and the overall experiences of people living with chronic conditions during a pandemic.

Living With a Trifecta of Pain and Cancer With Personal Reflections of COVID-19.

The purpose of preparing this Feature Article was to explore and share my lived experience of living with multiple layers of chronic pain, with a diagnosis of advanced, aggressive and metastasized prostate cancer, and COVID-19. My exploration begins with the manifestations of chronic pain from a bicycling accident, psoriatic arthritis, with cancer treatments and the pain it creates during a panademic has added to the challenges of social distancing, isolation, and medical treatments. As with many patient experiences, we the person as patient outside of health care sometimes struggle to find the right words, the proper sentence structure and as Tamas writes about the expectation of others to provide, "Clean and reasonable scholarship about messy, unreasonable experiences is an exercise in alienation." I write this while living with extreme chronic pain, continue cancer treatments while the threat and additional anxiety of COVID-19 looms over me. This is my story.