The Model Center for Thyroid Surgery and Thyroid Surgeon Stavros Tsirigotakis are closely following developments regarding the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. He recognizes that patients with thyroid cancer are particularly anxious and in a difficult position in light of daily developments. Thus we have modified the management of patients with surgical thyroid problems.
Cancer & Covid-19 diagnosis announcement
A cancer diagnosis is a real shock not only for the patient, but also for their loved ones (and in the covid-19 era). The effects of cancer on the psychology of the patient are of enormous importance.
We know very well that “The word cancer when announced to a patient is like opening a door and being in a nightmare. Time stops, thoughts and feelings of anxiety, fear for the future arise. It’s like cancer cells metastasize. Metastases not only in the body but as if they go to all areas of his life, in his roles as a person, as if they spread without control.”
Almost all people who are sick or have one of their own
person with cancer has heard, thought or felt these words. The word “Cancer” has a stereotyped, social stigma. A story is hidden in every syllable. Each of her letters is a projection into the future, a “what if” hypothesis, an “if” trap, a disaster scenario.
Reaction to hearing the word
A word that automatically awakens psychological mechanisms of thought, which make it more difficult to manage. Words that we now have to rationalize, change their interpretation, remove the labels. To try to cure not only the disease like cancer but also what has been written in people’s minds about it.
Let’s see it as a disease that can be treated and not as a disaster for life.
We are never going to overlook this part of our patient’s recovery.
Priorities
The main guiding principle in our decisions is the safety of the patient, the safety of society as a whole and finally our own comfort and safety.
Thyroid Surgeon Stavros Tsirigotakis emphasizes:
“The work of the doctor who treats patients and does not sit at home… has always had real risks for the lives of the doctors themselves. These risks did not arise today with Covid-19. There were always patients with infectious diseases. These could contaminate the doctor, such as those patients who have influenza, hepatitis, tuberculosis, AIDS and
these are only a few of the dozens of diseases to which we are daily exposed. As healthcare providers, we are acutely aware of the dangers that exist especially in our workplaces these days.
Today, almost every hospital I know of has adopted protective measures and some form of “sanitization” after we leave that space. Whether these objectively disinfect, or relieve our psychology, or both, healthcare workers have devised and implement their own protocols.
Apparently, there is a balance. It is between the seriousness of the truth, the burden of treating patients and the help we provide to save lives. It weighs tons on our backs. The risk is a reality and there is no PERFECT solution to such a complex situation.”
Criteria
Thyroid Surgeon Stavros Tsirigotakis took into account the updated instructions of EODY (https://eody.gov.gr/neos-koronaios-covid-19). The recommendations of the Center of Disease Control (USA) and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (European Union). As well as the detailed guidelines of the ACS (American College of Surgeons).
Recommendations are determined by the following parameters:
- the necessity of the surgery for the survival of the patient
- the burden on the Health System (medical logistics) from surgery or the non-surgical treatment of diseases (conservative treatment) – consumption of blood units and derivatives. Need for lengthy surgery. Need for multi-day hospitalization, need for hospitalization in the Intensive Care Unit
- the risk of exposure to infection from COVID-19 for both the patient and the medical and nursing staff.
How we operate
In general, the conditions are assessed daily, by Thyroid Surgeon Stavros Tsirigotakis and his colleagues, based on the data of the COVID-19 pandemic and the needs of the Health System, with a sense of responsibility. In particular, our recommendations are as follows:
- Every patient is unique. The patient who needs to be operated on for a benign thyroid can wait. To wait until the conditions of the pandemic from the coronavirus COVID-19 improve
- A patient with life-threatening thyroid cancer has access to surgery
- A patient with toxic goiter (Graves) has access to surgery
This tactic is not the side of self-sacrifice but the responsible attitude for the common good and public health. It is the social conscience side. We are on the side of those who put their lives in danger to save their fellow citizens, who have been untouchable lately running next to the patient.
We stand with those directly involved as health workers. In the first line, of course, are the hero doctors who are in the public hospitals, but also the nurses and the rest of the hospital staff. We know that in China many doctors and nurses lost their lives. In Italy, the government is calling for help even from retired doctors. And you know what that means… It means that those of us who respond to the call may be fighting for our own lives and not just for the lives of others. With us are also the scientists who put their eyes over a microscope to find treatments and the vaccine. Who are not in that much danger, but live with the hope and the titanic stress of saving as many as they can, as quickly as possible.
We are not the heroes of the day, now that time is pressing like a hydraulic press. Those of us who chose this function we wanted to serve are here purely by choice. Let us each do what we know. The human need for faith does not need exploitation.