Mid-level surgeons during pandemic: The unsung fingers and forceps | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • Subscribe
    • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Tuesday
July 01, 2025

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • Subscribe
    • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
TUESDAY, JULY 01, 2025
Mid-level surgeons during pandemic: The unsung fingers and forceps

Thoughts

Dr Rajib Dey Sarker
22 May, 2021, 11:00 am
Last modified: 22 May, 2021, 11:03 am

Related News

  • New Covid-19 variant in town: Are we ready to fight the old enemy in a new guise?
  • Triple threat: Dengue, Covid cases surge as chikungunya reemerges
  • Covid-19: 2 more deaths, 4 new cases reported in 24hrs
  • Special health guidelines issued for HSC exams amid covid-19, dengue surge
  • 7 new Covid-19 cases reported in 24hrs

Mid-level surgeons during pandemic: The unsung fingers and forceps

Dealing with pre-operative evaluation, resuscitation, reaching a provisional diagnosis and post-operative complications are routine surgical traits for a mid-level surgeon that hasn’t reclined to any level even in the hours of hectic wearing the N95 respirators

Dr Rajib Dey Sarker
22 May, 2021, 11:00 am
Last modified: 22 May, 2021, 11:03 am
Dr Rajib Dey Sarker, Registrar (33 BCS) Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital. Photo: Courtesy
Dr Rajib Dey Sarker, Registrar (33 BCS) Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital. Photo: Courtesy

As the grave coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) haunts the health care delivery system globally, the health care workers are combating with immense stress and hectic pressure for the last 15 months. In Bangladesh, the mental crisis is more prone and sophisticated for mid-level doctors. 

Surgery exposes a surgical team to blood, contents of the alimentary system, and body fluids of infected patients. To be precise, this is unavoidable in surgery (laparotomy, amputation, wound debridement, abscess surgery, etc) whatever the set-up is. 

The profound effect of this virus has left mid-level surgeons, i.e. registrar, assistant registrar, indoor medical officer, and surgical residents of surgery and allied discipline (I don't prefer to use the term 'junior surgeons') and their workload in a critical situation. From the beginning of the pandemic in our country that is in early March 2020, mid-level surgeons were still working brave-heartedly in the frontline, promising a fair surgical service to people who were in despair with their surgical health issues. 

The Business Standard Google News Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel

No telemedicine will satisfy you if your ailments demand surgery and that is where mid-level surgeons are incomparable in designated facilities. Mid-level surgeons, whether in a course of MS, FCPS, or in Diplomas, are a well-designed skilled icon for relatively all sorts of life-saving surgeries. 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, these surgeons keep our medical college hospital or specialized centres thrilled with their captive hard work, maturity and devotions.  

Roughly speaking, our hospital environments are truly 'unsafe' in this pandemic and we function as super-spreaders to our friends and families in this coronavirus pandemic, but this hasn't shaken our responsibility and passion for surgery. 

Surgeons are always under stress while operating and managing increased concern for surgical modalities of treatments as general people tends to google every alternative. Dealing with pre-operative evaluation, resuscitation, reaching a provisional diagnosis and post-operative complications are routine surgical traits for a mid-level surgeon that hasn't reclined to any level even in the hours of hectic wearing the N95 respirators. This is quite a devastating physical and mental hardship for all of us on the frontline. Despite all these glooms, the show must go on. You cannot prescribe an alternative to patients if he/she absolutely possess an indication of surgery. 

The 'new normal' hasn't offered us any comfortable option for prescribing modalities for surgical disease. Young doctors in surgical discipline are facing mental hardship. Since the beginning, the foremost strategy has been to limit direct and close physical interaction between doctors and patients. But is relatively impossible to reach a surgical diagnosis without examining the patients in close proximity just as before the Covid time. 

Photo: Collected
Photo: Collected

Yes, these efforts also end up in unprecedented pitfalls when we project the statistics of numerous mid-level surgeons in Bangladesh being affected by Covid-19 with hospital admissions and dreadful hours of breathlessness and/or isolation.

Despite all our possible safety measures, how were we destined for such a horrible health catastrophe? The answer is embedded in our bold dedication to our patients even in this fearful pandemic. To be true, in OPD, in admissions rooms, in specialized one-stops, in Covid wards, or in the OR, we never left this battle. We spent more hours together in a team, to arrange the most feasible surgical care for our patients. We kept on working even overnights to keep hospital admission of patients to a liberal number. We cared for wounds, for tissues, and whole-heartedly for the sufferings of our patients. While the attendants of these patients were in dilemma whether to come close to patients or not, we acted proactively to unbracket the earliest cure for patients. We arranged the regular Covid tests in wards and preoperatively to keep other patients safe.

To be precise, we were the warriors for IPC in every aspect, even compromising our safety to whatnot limits. We also hold the responsibilities of our fellow team-mates, our interns, and nursing staff who also fight relentlessly with us in this coronavirus service hours. 

It is true that this virus is not dealt with surgically, but while the virus is literally everywhere and still a surgery is obligatory, nobody can deny the role of a surgeon. Mid-level surgeons hold the most unsung fingers with forceps in this coronavirus grief. Nobody would care for the number of emergency surgeries that were undertaken with great and utmost care from the beginning of the pandemic, but we did it and still on work perpetually. Incentives, thanks-giving, rewards are simply ways of boosting our spirits, but unfortunately, we haven't seen such a good morning.

Surgery is a passion and you cannot name an alternative for that and so is for mid-level surgeons of Bangladesh. The changing clinical scenario of coronavirus infections offers more challenging roles from our surgical community, and undoubtedly, we, the mid-level surgeons are ready for emerging. 


Dr Rajib Dey Sarker, Registrar (33 BCS) Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital. Email: rds@mis.dghs.gov.bd

surgeon / Health Care Bangladesh / health care staff / Bangladesh Health Care Sector / Coronavirus Pandemic / Covid -19 / Covid 19

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Photos: Collected
    Rubio calls Yunus, discusses economic ties as US tariff negotiation goes on
  • Representational image. File photo: TBS
    Ships depart, cargo operation in full swing as Ctg port starts clearing containers
  • NBR Office in Dhaka. File Photo: Collected
    NBR officers should captain revenue authority, businesses tell finance adviser

MOST VIEWED

  • Return to work or face stern action, govt warns protesters as NBR jobs declared 'essential services'
    Return to work or face stern action, govt warns protesters as NBR jobs declared 'essential services'
  • Representational image. Photo: UNB
    After 58 yrs, Ctg getting two new govt schools
  • Remittance inflow hits record $30b in FY25
    Remittance inflow hits record $30b in FY25
  • Officials of the NBR, under the banner of the NBR Unity Council, continued their protest on Sunday since 9am. Photo: Syed Zakir Hossain/TBS
    NBR staff call off protest as govt goes tough
  • Record $30b remittance lifts reserves to $26b
    Record $30b remittance lifts reserves to $26b
  • A Chevron gas station sign is seen in Del Mar, California, April 25, 2013. Chevron will report earnings on April 26. REUTERS/Mike Blake
    Chevron to resume Jalalabad gas project after Petrobangla clears $237m dues

Related News

  • New Covid-19 variant in town: Are we ready to fight the old enemy in a new guise?
  • Triple threat: Dengue, Covid cases surge as chikungunya reemerges
  • Covid-19: 2 more deaths, 4 new cases reported in 24hrs
  • Special health guidelines issued for HSC exams amid covid-19, dengue surge
  • 7 new Covid-19 cases reported in 24hrs

Features

Illustration: TBS

Ulan Daspara: Remnants of a fishing village in Dhaka

7h | Panorama
Photo: Collected

Innovative storage accessories you’ll love

1d | Brands
Two competitors in this segment — one a flashy newcomer, the other a hybrid veteran — are going head-to-head: the GAC GS3 Emzoom and the Toyota CH-R. PHOTOS: Nafirul Haq (GAC Emzoom) and Akif Hamid (Toyota CH-R)

GAC Emzoom vs Toyota CH-R: The battle of tech vs trust

1d | Wheels
Women farmers, deeply reliant on access to natural resources for both farming and domestic survival, are among the most affected, caught between ecological collapse and inadequate structural support. Photo: Shaharin Amin Shupty

Hope in the hills: How women farmers in Bandarban are weathering the climate crisis

1d | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Committee led by DC-UNOs to set up polling stations cancelled

Committee led by DC-UNOs to set up polling stations cancelled

4h | TBS Today
What is the reason behind Russia's refusal to go to war against Israel?

What is the reason behind Russia's refusal to go to war against Israel?

5h | Others
BNP Blamed by Parties as Reforms Lag

BNP Blamed by Parties as Reforms Lag

5h | TBS Today
What are the problems with foreign investment in the renewable energy sector in the country?

What are the problems with foreign investment in the renewable energy sector in the country?

6h | TBS Today
EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Advertisement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2025
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net