Ten teachings to practice Medicine in the post-COVID era

The Wise

 

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is a real challenge

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the COVID-19 disease have been a real challenge to the nurses and physicians , both in the primary care and the hospitals.  Health workers have been able to keep an attitude of learning from the experience in a transversal mode with other professionals., working as a team.Probably, in the immediate future, after reaching a percentage of vaccination around 70%, the health services can return to work in similar conditions than before, but we are not going to go back in the same situation.  We have learnt a lot of things after the pandemic, and some of them are going to stay here forever, because other challenges and menaces will come.

As a way to resume some learning from the experience, I have tried to start with ten concepts that I consider important to practice clinical medicine in the next future

Decalogue
  1. Expand your training in individual and community hygiene

  2. Work in a complete and appropriate clinical wardrobe, with daily change

  3. Develop continuous training in general aspects of other medical specialties that can be used for cross-sectional clinical work

  4. Be prepared for organizational changes to respond to future threats

  5. Include long-COVID problems in the patient’s current differential diagnosis

  6. Develop training in Clinical Safety and “Risk Management”

  7. Encourage training in knowing the clinic of uncommon infectious processes

  8. Study the non-COVID processes suffered by patients, after being admitted with the diagnostic presumption of COVID

  9. Encourage teamwork with other non-medical personnel to come up with common strategies in case of incidents

  10. Remember that practicing medicine is a risky activity, so be always aware of unforeseen events

Lorenzo Alonso

FORO  OSLER

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