Page 3 - ISAKOS 2020 Newsletter Volume 2

Difficult Times
for All
In mid-March of this year, here in New York City, our hospital suddenly stopped our regular routine of outpatient visits and surgery and we transformed ourselves from an orthopaedic hospital into a COVID-19 hospital. While doing so, we continued to provide care for emergency orthopaedic patients, such as open reduction and internal fixation of fractures. Our ambulatory surgery operating room floor was transformed into an Intensive Care Unit. Walls were constructed to separate the intubated patients that were accepted from other local hospitals that were beyond their capacity. A few weeks later, in early April, there did not appear to be a clear end in sight. However, a few weeks after that, we began to see a light at the end of the tunnel and we expanded our operations from only “emergency” cases to “urgent” cases in early May. Our hospital re-opened for elective surgery in mid-June. To my surprise, doing surgery in the COVID-19 era has felt relatively normal. However, the crisis has had a massive impact on our community. I know many people who contracted the virus and some who perished. I also recently saw a patient who I operated on earlier this year, prior to the pandemic, who months later contracted the virus. He required hospital admission and told me that while admitted to a local hospital, he watched three men pass away while lying in hospital beds right next to him. Several doctors in my hospital got sick from the virus and a respiratory therapist who worked at our hospital died from the disease.
ISAKOS recognizes the global movement for eliminating racial discrimination and injustice around the world. As a true global society, ISAKOS has always maintained unequivocal support for the need for, and the unquestionable value in, diversity in race, culture, and gender, and unconditionally supports those around the world who continue to ght towards this important goal for the bene t of all.
“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his
comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
– Nelson Mandela (1994)
It has been a very challenging time in New York, as well as for the rest of the country. At the time of this writing, the number of cases and deaths is unfortunately rising precipitously across the southern United States, for largely preventable reasons.
In addition to the Coronavirus, there has been great civil unrest across the United States due to the killing of black Americans, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks. Unfortunately, all were defenseless at the time of their killing by police officers. This has led to an outpouring of outrage and protests across the country, as well as a demand for change.
These problems are not limited to only New York or America. The entire world has gone through an unprecedented hardship over the past few months and every ISAKOS member has been affected to some degree. I hope that our members and their families have made it through this global crisis safely, and I also hope that with an improved situation worldwide, we can meet in person at our 2021 ISAKOS Congress in Cape Town, South Africa with the suffering behind us. I also hope that we can learn from the pain I describe above, to make the world a safer and better place in the future.
Robert G. Marx, MD
ISAKOS Newsletter Editor 2019–2021
hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love
skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to”
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ISAKOS NEWSLETTER 2020: VOLUME II
EDITOR’S MESSAGE