The Role of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons in COVID-19 Response

Abstract

Shortages of staff, supplies, and specialization in the wake of the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic has rewritten the operational paradigm of medical centers nationwide and led to the redeployment of health care workers both within hospital walls and across state lines. Nonemergent and elective procedures have been postponed and cancelled, intensive care units face a logistical and ethical quagmire about the staffing and distribution of mechanical ventilators, and hospitals are competing against each other for scarce personal protective equipment (PPE), leaving many of their frontline staff unarmed.