Dr. David Ansel is a local physician who has worked at Rush, Cook County and Mt. Sinai hospitals – all located on the west side of Chicago. In 2017 he wrote the book “The Death Gap”. He states “tens of thousands of Americans die too early. These early deaths are not random events. These deaths strike particular individuals who live in particular American neighborhoods. While we know that people die of cancer, heart disease and so on, this killer is one that we cannot treat with drugs, therapy, or surgery. This killer is inequality”.

What do you think Dr. Ansel means by this statement and how has this been evident in the experience of Covid-19 in this country?(Please support your response with evidence, links to articles and/or other resources)

Surgical practice has rapidly changed in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic [¹]. Many hospitals have quickly filled to capacity with non-surgical patients and a substantial, yet poorly understood, risk from COVID-19 to staff and patients has emerged [²].

International professional bodies have been quick to disseminate initial guidance documents during the COVID-19 pandemic [^[. In the absence of firm evidence [⁶], and with insufficient time to consult their memberships, guidance has been based predominantly on experiential reports and has been developed by expert committees within these professional bodies; limited in participant number, yet far-reaching in influence [⁷]. Such leadership, while helpful in aligning early OR practice, is not comprehensive, and cannot hope to integrate the perspectives of the wider medical community. With this approach comes a risk of disproportionate reliance upon a limited perspective, and the representativeness of the guidance produced is unclear