A Community-Based Model to the COVID-19 Humanitarian Crisis.

A multidisciplinary group, mainly from Bergamo region - the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in Italy on march 2020- has developed concept of creating intermediate care facilities and proposes a three-tier model of community-based care, with the goal of reducing hospital admissions, contagion and mortality related to hospital overloading and optimizing human resources.

Addressing Key Clinical Care and Clinical Research Needs in Severe Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury: Perspectives From a Focused International Conference.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in children and adolescents. Survivors of severe TBI are more prone to functional deficits, resulting in poorer school performance, poor health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and increased risk of mental health problems. Critical gaps in knowledge of pathophysiological differences between children and adults concerning TBI outcomes, the paucity of pediatric trials and prognostic models and the uncertain extrapolation of adult data to pediatrics pose significant challenges and demand global efforts. Here, we explore the clinical and research unmet needs focusing on severe pediatric TBI to identify best practices in pathways of care and optimize both inpatient and outpatient management of children following TBI.

[Clinical experience and critical issues.] / Esperienza clinica e criticità.

Bergamo is a rich and populous city of northern Italy and one of the epicentres of the worldwide pandemic CoViD-19. Despite the generosity of health workers, we are undergoing a severe humanitarian crisis that is stressing every aspect of daily life. From outside it is very hard to understand, because houses are closed for lockdown and are not destroyed as they would be in an earthquake. An outbreak is not "only" a sudden mass lethal incident, like a natural disaster, neither "only" a disease, to be treated by doctors, but a social phenomenon too. Historical and social elements are key factors for development (for example, intensive promiscuity between animals and humans) and spread of an epidemic (for example, health workers and ambulance rapidly become vector of the virus). Can medical responsibility change in times of pandemic? My answer, as anaesthetist and intensive care physician from Bergamo, is yes. When the global medical community is called on to face a pandemic of unprecedented scale, with little scientific evidence and "crazy numbers" describing the situation, honest and forthcoming advocacy is an ethical duty. Aim of this narrative report is to share a view point about the dilemma of moral responsibility.

COVID 19: Ethical dilemmas in human lives.

On 7 May 2020, Columbia University Global Centers hosted an online international symposium on ethical dilemmas during the COVID-19 pandemic. This interdisciplinary engagement between philosophers and Covid medical professionals reports the challenges as well as the discrepancies between ethical guidelines and reality. This collection of presentations identifies four key ethical dilemmas regarding responsibility, fairness, dignity and honouring death. In looking into accountability and consistency in medical humanities, it examines whether the contextuality of coronavirus across countries and cultures affected the ethical decision-making processes. This work aims to provide a seminal resource for the development of a high-quality roadmap in medical ethics for future health crises.