Adam Friedman, MD: Returning to Normal During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has uprooted virtually every business across the globe, including the healthcare industry.

Appointments and checkups have been cancelled or moved to virtual settings and research and elective surgeries have been put on hold until researchers have a better grasp on how to treat the growing number of patients coming down with the virus.

In fields like dermatology, the transition to telemedicine was smooth, but there is still a need to return to an office setting. However, by all accounts, those visits to a doctor’s office or a hospital cannot occur until the risk for both the patient and medical staff is substantially reduced.

In an interview with HCPLIVE®, Adam Friedman, MD, Professor & Interim Chair of Dermatology at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, said there is some hope that live appointments may be able to resume soon, at least in the Washington D.C. area.

Friedman also explained how dermatologists were able to transition to telehealth once it was decided it wasn’t safe for live appointments to occur during the early stages of the pandemic.