EDITORIAL

Dear friends,

Last year has been a significant turning point for the whole world. ‘Thanks’ to the pandemic we, as a whole, have found ourselves in situations we never thought we’d find ourselves in. I am incredibly proud of the doctors and the nurses in our field as they have shown both an amazing ability to adapt to daily organizational changes, their extreme professionalism and especially an accepting approach to the voluntary care of covid positive patients.

The start of the pandemic was marked by uncertainty and ignorance of the disease´s behaviour. As we all remember recently, we have been exposed to a lack of protective equipment, information about extreme mortality in foreign epicentres, and the very real fear for our friends’ and family’s safety.

The committee of the Czech Society of Plastic Surgery responded promptly to the call to reduce unnecessary medical care, which not only helped us save the necessary protective equipment for other medical professionals as well as civilians, but also minimized the spread of the virus.

In the following months, thanks to the sharing of information from around the world and the possibility of introducing PCR testing, we were suddenly able to afford to change our approach and expand patient care.

As the situation gradually stabilizes, I still see a decrease in the mutual contact between experts from distant workplaces. At the same time, we all know very well that people cannot be treated at a distance, half of the success of any doctor’s work is direct communication with the patient.

The same goes for teaching medicine. Despite the immense efforts of all lecturers to maintain the continuity of pregradual and postgradual education, personal, real life contact with students and colleagues from other workplaces cannot be replaced by electronic communication. However, I must highlight the training of the twenty-four lecturers who, without any doubt, helped enable the smooth running of the weekly precertification course.

Although the majority of professional events took place online, we have postponed our congress twice already, hoping that we will all meet in person.

Wishing you and yours a safe, healthy, and prosperous new year 2021.

Prof. Andrej Sukop, MD, PhD

President

Czech Society of Plastic Surgery CzMA