Delays in surgery will have real impacts on patient health outcomes, hospital finances and resources, as well as training and research programs. A thoughtful and concerted effort is necessary to mitigate these effects. The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic will leave a permanent mark on all aspects of society, including politics, culture, economics, health policy, and medicine. Hospitals are at the frontline of this crisis and have shifted their resources to handle the coronavirus pandemic on an unprecedented scale. No department has been left untouched from the effects of COVID-19, surgery included. By mid-March, institutions in hotspot areas began postponing or canceling elective cases to preserve resources and reduce risk of transmission. Currently, hospitals are only performing the most urgent cases. However, elective surgery is not optional surgery; it may be deemed non-urgent at this time but does not mean unnecessary. In 2014, more than 21 million surgeries were performed in the United States, and estimates suggest 91% of U.S surgeries are elective. At the conclusion of the crisis, there will be at least a three-month backlog of surgery. Rough calculations suggest that these three months translate into nearly 5 million surgical cases. The impending surgery backlog is a serious problem that hospital administrators and surgeons will inevitably need to address.

With this aim, the Annals of Surgery has just published a Surgical Perspective after the Covid-19 Pandemic consequences, written by Stanford surgeons and Palo Alto health care system Innovation Center. 

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