What will the endometriosis community learn from the COVID-19 experience?
This pandemic has been, and remains to be, a very difficult period for individuals with endometriosis. However, this panel believes the consequences of the pandemic will yield a change in how clinical medicine for endometriosis is conducted. Firstly, there may be an ongoing openness to telehealth. This could dramatically minimise the geographic barriers to care that many women experience and facilitate the development of endometriosis networks of expertise, which is recommended by the World Endometriosis Society.8Telehealth may also be an appropriate alternative for patients with pain that limits their ability to travel to their healthcare provider in some settings. Second, there may be increased awareness to self-management strategies that have always existed, yet were under-utilised. Finally, the current situation mandates a more discerning approach to surgery now and in the future, so that we ‘operate sparingly and operate well’. This approach can be guided by preoperative triaging tools including advanced clinical algorithms and imaging strategies10 to avoid multiple repeated surgical procedures.