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Wilkinson recommends that neurologists looking to join multidisciplinary COVID-19 efforts should review the acute patient management and best practices for prescribing palliative care. “These are the two main aspects of working on a COVID-19 ward,” he said.
Neurologists in northern Italy, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in Europe, have also left their usual posts to help during the pandemic.
Anna Bersano, MD, PhD, at the cerebrovascular unit at Fondazione Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta in Milan, told Medscape Medical News that many of her colleagues have redeployed to teams at other facilities, especially in Bergamo and Brescia.
“Other neurologists at bigger hospitals were reallocated to emergency wards or internal medicine wards,” she said.
Although Bersano was willing to help out, she contracted the virus at the end of February. “I was not redeployed. I was fortunate enough only to have a long fever, muscle pain, and ageusia. Now I’m recovering,” she said.
Neurosurgeons have also answered the call to help, especially those who find they have more time on their hands because of the large volume of canceled elective surgeries at their institutions.
“We are supporting the frontlines as we can, deploying to emergency room and ICU where we can be helpful,” Martina Stippler, MD, a neurosurgeon at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, told Medscape Medical News.
Waiting in the Wings
The intensity of COVID-19 outbreaks in different regions varies widely, but neurologists are ready and willing to switch specialties should the local infection rate and caseload spike.
“There has definitely been an effect of COVID. While we have not experienced a surge, the hospital has a steady influx of COVID patients,” said Shyam Prabhakaran, MD, professor and chair of neurology at the University of Chicago Biological Sciences, Illinois.
Neurologists remain ready to redeploy as needed. Not content to wait, some neurology faculty are volunteering for shifts in the ED to help triage patients for admission, he added.
“The ED faces staff shortages in dealing with the increase in patients with ILI [influenza-like illness].”
The pandemic has also changed the number of people coming to his institution for stroke care, Prabhakaran added.
