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Dear Editor in Chief,
With great interest we have read the recent article entitled “Brain Awareness Week, CoVID-19 infection and Neurological Sciences” which was published in your valuable journal [1]. We want to congratulate the author for this successful article and have one suggestion for designating a special issue to study the brain mechanism of occupational sacrificing of frontline healthcare professionals who died in the fight of COVID-19.
From the early days of the spread of COVID-19 in China, the unique role of healthcare professionals in controlling this disease has been identified [2, 3]. These people need different facilities and equipment to fight the disease and help patients, and if the equipment is not regular enough, it will be difficult to get to the frontline of the fight against this virus [4]. The lack of equipment in some countries such as Iran, Italy, Spain, and even the USA has made physicians and nurses in difficult working conditions [5,6,7]. These conditions, along with the high number of patients referring to medical centers, have caused many physical and psychological problems for the medical staff [8,9,10].
During the COVID-19 crisis, bad news has been heard about the death of healthcare workers. More than 100 physicians and nurses died during the treatment of their patients. Why do not they quit their jobs despite the lack of facilities [7] and the certainty that they will become infected or die?
Past studies have suggested the role of self-sacrifice in this regard [11, 12]. We believe that in healthcare professionals, this factor can be considered a reason for not leaving the duty not only despite the insufficient personal protective equipment but also death in the way of treatment of patients. Self-sacrificing or altruistic behavior has been introduced as part of the “stewardship theory.” To date, most studies in this area have focused on the stewardship behavior of managers [13]. Opposite of this view has been seen in a recent article and also in news during COVID-19 [14, 15]. The death of the “frontline healthcare professionals” during COVID-19 needed more studies to develop the new type of “self-sacrifices” theories in crisis management.
Designating a special part of researches to studying the brain mechanism of these healthcare professionals which they sacrifice themselves can be a minor substitute to their effort in the frontline fighting COVID-19.
References
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Mosaferchi, S., Mortezapour, A. & Heidarimoghadam, R. Letter to editor: brain awareness week, CoVID-19 infection and neurological sciences. Neurol Sci 41, 1377–1378 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-020-04441-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-020-04441-2