Top Stories: August 2021
From the Delta Variant’s spread to natural disasters around the world, it is important now more than ever to know what is happening in our global community. Check out some articles that we were reading this month.
COVID-19, Mask Mandates, And The Case For Physician Political Engagement
Health Affairs
“The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated in stark terms the importance of considering politics as a key determinant of not just how but whether the nation effectively responds to emergent threats endangering public health. Our checkered experience with mask mandates in the US is a prime example of this intersection between politics and public health. Despite clear evidence that government mask mandates would increase mask-wearing behavior and save lives, elected leaders in several states chose not to institute them. Their inaction, which jeopardized the health of thousands of Americans, underscores that public health is not immune from political tides; it is directly tied to them. Physicians, having taken an oath to serve patients, have a responsibility to confront this sobering reality; they must engage in the policy and political arena to prevent medical and public health science from being undermined and to safeguard the health of patients and communities.”
Critical Care Doctors Are in Crisis
Scientific American
“Who’s caring for the ICU physicians?
As a critical care physician, Kelli Mathew knew her days were spinning in the wrong direction. For one thing, her well of empathy was dry. When unvaccinated people came to her, suffering the effects of COVID, Mathew began snapping back. She had run out of comforting or even neutral things to say.”
Dr Navadeva Harendra Cooray shares his story of life as an emergency medicine physician in Sri Lanka
International Federation for Emergency Medicine
“Dr Navadeva Harendra Cooray completed his undergraduate training from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He has the rare distinction of being amongst the first Emergency Medicine MD and postgraduate diploma in Critical Care Medicine holders from Sri Lanka. He is the acting Consultant Emergency Physician of the ETU Neuro-trauma Centre at the National Hospital of Sri Lanka. He is the Founder Past President of the Sri Lankan College for Retrieval & Emergency Medicine and is a member of the Sri Lankan Society of Critical Care and Emergency Medicine for over a decade and has held the posts of General Secretary in both the Critical Care and Emergency Medicine arms of the society. Harendra has amassed a wealth of clinical practice experience by working in many parts of India, Sri Lanka & Australia for the past 26 years.”
Facilitating the development of emergency nursing in Africa: Operational challenges and successes
African Journal of Emergency Medicine
“The World Health Assembly declared 2020 as the ‘Year of the Nurse and the Midwife’ in recognition of the critical contribution of both professions to global health. Nurses globally are having to do more with less and in the already resource deficient African context, significant adaptation and leadership is required in the way emergency nurses work if they are to be effective in reducing mortality and morbidity within emergency populations.”
‘I’m the Only Surgeon’: After Haiti Quake, Thousands Seek Scarce Carequake.html
The New York Times
“A day after a magnitude-7.2 earthquake killed an estimated 1,300 people in western Haiti, the country, already suffering from a dire lack of doctors, struggled to help the many wounded.”
68,000 attended Northern Ireland emergency departments in June
BBC News
“Almost 68,000 people attended Northern Ireland’s emergency departments (EDs) in June, an increase of more than 24% compared to the same month in 2020.
The latest statistics from the Department of Health revealed an extremely busy picture in EDs over the past 12 months.”
