PGY-2 resident Hunter Skoog, M.D., Associate Professor Kirk Withrow, M.D., Assistant Professor Harishanker Jeyarajan, M.D., Assistant Professor Benjamin Greene, M.D., Assistant Professor Jessica Grayson, M.D., and Department Chair and Professor William Carroll, M.D. published "Tracheotomy in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic" in Head & Neck Journal of the Sciences of the Head and Neck

 According to the article, "The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)‐CoV‐2 pandemic continues to produce a large number of patients with chronic respiratory failure and ventilator dependence. As such, surgeons will be called upon to perform tracheotomy for a subset of these chronically intubated patients. As seen during the SARS and the SARS‐CoV‐2 outbreaks, aerosol‐generating procedures (AGP) have been associated with higher rates of infection of medical personnel and potential acceleration of viral dissemination throughout the medical center. Therefore, a thoughtful approach to tracheotomy (and other AGPs) is imperative and maintaining traditional management norms may be unsuitable or even potentially harmful." 

The authors reviewed the existing evidence informing best practices and then develop straightforward gudelines for tracheotomy during the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic.