Search

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected millions of people in over 180 territories, causing a significant impact on healthcare systems globally. Older adults, as well as people living with cancer, appear to be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 related morbidity and mortality, which means that older adults with cancer are an especially high-risk population. This has led to significant changes in the way geriatric oncologists provide care to older patients, including the implementation of novel methods for clinical visits, interruptions or delays in procedures, and modification of therapeutic strategies, both in the curative and palliative settings. In this manuscript, we provide a global overview of the perspectives of geriatric oncology providers from countries across Europe, America, and Asia, regarding the adaptive strategies utilized to continue providing high quality care for older patients with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through these perspectives, we attempt to show that, although each country and setting has specific issues, we all face similar challenges when providing care for our older patients with cancer during these difficult times. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Can we utilise controversy in classrooms when it is discouraged in society? This is a proposition to be taken seriously in Singapore. It raises a basic question about academic controversy: do we introduce young learners to controversial issues, or draw upon their awareness of such issues? Particularly with younger pupils, contentious learning will involve both approaches in some combination. But there is a difference between students grappling with an issue they know to be contentious, and having the issue defined on their behalf by teachers and policymakers. In the latter case, the student will simply be reconciling competing perspectives, but while controversial issues are competing accounts, the reverse is not true. The Oxfam guide defines controversial issues as those ‘that have a political, social or personal impact and arouse feeling and/or deal with questions of value or belief’ (Oxfam 2006: 2). Controversial issues are socially, rather than academically, determined.