1st Crisis in Healthcare Conference

This online conference brings together academics, educators, clinicians, practitioners and others from a wide variety of fields, for a collaborative, multidisciplinary exploration of the ways in which the pandemic has impacted education, and medical / nursing education. Abstracts are reviewed. Themes and issues for the conference include, but are not limited to:

Stream A: The emotional crisis among clinicians and practitioners

What are the mental health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on healthcare workers? What has happened to their sleep, diet, relationships, parenting, drug and alcohol abuse, depression and suicide? What coping mechanisms are there? How should employers, governments, families and friends respond over the longer term? How can managers and administrators help their teams handle stress and anxiety - what can they do for themselves? How has the pandemic shaped the emotional work of providing care? Where has it led to a sense of moral injury, as employers, workplaces and governments use healthcare personnel without proper regard for their safety and wellbeing? To what extent does this crisis reflect the offloading of healthcare from public to private providers? How has it shaped established emotional issues in healthcare - empathy in medical internship and beyond, exhaustion, PTSD, the loss of face time in virtual relationships, and resiliency?

Stream B: Paediatric care and the pandemic

How can we support paediatric patients and their families in this crisis? What are children’s and families’ psychosocial needs?  How can we ensure that ethical decision-making frameworks work for palliative care, and the provision of care to vulnerable youth? How can we support low-income families or families in economic distress, families concerned about bringing their children to a hospital for vaccination, routine visits or other healthcare needs in case they become infected with Covd-19? How can we diagnose and treat paediatric isolation, neglect, anxiety, emotional trauma, PTSD, or the developmental delays caused by social distancing?

Stream C: Virtual consultations

Virtual consultation have been widely used in the pandemic, and are likely to remain once the virus has been handled. What are the potentials, and limitations of online methods? To what extent can  telecommunications stand in for face-to-face relationships? How does it impact clinicians’ and practitioners’ workload and pay? How does it change the roles of office staff, how we interact with team members, hospital administration, insurance companies and others? How has this changed patient expectations? How does this trend interact with the public’s use of online medical information and resources, more broadly? How is it changing their understanding of clinical roles and functions? How can we improve telemedicine?