Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine accounted for a mere one percent of overall physician-patient interactions. Now, at its peak, the Harvard Business Review reports that virtual consultations make up 50-80 percent of appointments. Telemedicine has been hugely beneficial for a multitude of reasons: it has made scheduling easier, increased overall convenience for patients, and
The World Health Organization has recorded over 100 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and around 2.5 million deaths, in a pandemic that has devastated communities worldwide (World Health Organization). In addition to the characteristics that make COVID-19 a deadly acute disease, increasing evidence points to a long-term syndrome that afflicts certain patients. The ‘long-hauler’ phenomenon first
Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS) is a serious inflammatory condition that affects the entire body. A patient is diagnosed with SIRS if they meet 2 or more of the following criteria outlined by the 1992 American College of Chest Physicians/Society of Critical Care Medicine consensus conference: the patient’s temperature is greater than 38°C (100.4°F) or
Ophthalmic surgery presents unique challenges to the anesthesiologist [1]. The patient population varies widely, from an infant requiring strabismus surgery to an elderly patient requiring cataract surgery [1]. It is not uncommon for patients with rare genetic syndromes to present for eye surgery [2]. Since most patients undergoing ophthalmic surgeries are elderly with multiple comorbidities,