Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve and commandeer all aspects of
clinical management.11Parodi SM, Liu VX. From Containment to
Mitigation of COVID-19 in the US. JAMA 2020. The impact upon head and
neck oncologic care might lead to delayed diagnoses, treatment, and
surveillance in a manner that threatens optimal outcomes and survival
for untold patients.22Werner MT, Carey RM, Albergotti WG, Lukens
JN, Brody RM. Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Management of
Head and Neck Malignancies. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2020 (Epub).
How this will directly influence multidisciplinary care in widely
divergent settings remains unknown and uncharted.33De Felice F,
Polimeni A, Valentini V. The impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) on head
and neck cancer patients’ care. Radiother Oncol. 2020;147:84-85. Head
and neck cancer providers will be constrained in their ability to
provide vulnerable patients with the attention and care they require,
and will likely experience moral distress when routine management is all
but impossible. These feelings may be amplified by conflict between a
duty to care for patients and a duty to protect others by avoiding high
risk exposures. This article is designed to provide a guide to the
ethical issues inherent to care delivery in the current COVID-19 era.