A fatal association of COVID-19 and acute complicated Type-B aortic dissection: Interventional management in a difficult situation

We present a rare case with simultaneous COVID-19 pneumonia and acute complicated type -B aortic dissection (ACTBAD). With strained health services a major procedure endovascular aortic repair (EVAR) was performed. Despite successful EVAR, patient had sudden unexplained cardiac arrest. Procedural mortality is high among COVID-19 infected patients.

Integrated surgical teaching for juniors: Surgical education during COVID-19

Background: COVID-19 has impacted on the amount of formal theoretical and practical surgical teaching available for junior doctors and medical students. This added to an existing climate of variability in the undergraduate and foundation teaching curriculum. Junior doctors were subsequently reporting a lack in confidence when dealing with surgical patients. We aimed to assess the surgical learning needs of junior doctors and designed a quality improvement project that included implementing a surgical teaching programme to improve the quality of surgical education. Methods: A baseline questionnaire was completed by foundation year one doctors to establish confidence levels in managing surgical patients and carrying out practical procedures. Two sequential improvement strategies were subsequently implemented and assessed using the Plan-Do-Study-Act methodology. Junior doctors participated in a local surgical workshop in limited numbers during cycle 1, and then attended four online webinar tutorials themed around general surgery for cycle 2. Results: A total of 15 participants responded to the baseline questionnaire, 13 attended the workshop and a combined total of 572 viewed the four webinars. Mean confidence increase following the workshop was 113% (W=91.0, p<0.001). Mean knowledge increase from the online webinars was 62.3% (t=4.67, p=0.009) and mean confidence increase was 66.67% (p<0.0001). Conclusion: Junior doctors did not feel confident in assessing and managing surgically unwell patients. Implementing blended learning tools, such as online webinars, allowed the delivery of effective surgical teaching en masse and to continue the practice of social distancing during a viral pandemic.

The link between smoking and covid 19 — a short review

Smoking is always said to be a risk factor in many of the health conditions. Smokers are always at a higher risk. COVID 19 is a whole new chapter of its own. Recent research has stated that in COVID-19 smokers are 14 times more prone to death. Awareness in Indians is lacking, and they do not know the effects of smoking. Literature refers to the comorbidities like smoking, can-cer, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease diabetes etc. as ”pre-existing conditions”. The term coronavirus is used because of their appearance to a crown-like structure having long spikes of transmembrane glycoproteins. The link between coronavirus and smokers is still unknown. the role of angiotensin in smokers and its link-up with coronavirus needs to be understood. However, clarification regarding the casual link of these comorbidities to COVID-19 does not exist in the present literature. This article focuses on the link between smoking and COVID 19 and its effects. It pro-vides detailed knowledge regarding the link between coronavirus and smok-ers, which is the need of the hour as awareness is necessary for the present condition. This article focuses on the present condition as well as the link between smokers and the coronavirus. © 2020 Global Research Online. All rights reserved.