LAUSR

On March 11, 2020, the alarming spread and severity of the COVID-19 disease led the WHO to declare it as a pandemic. Around the globe, entire cities and nations came to a grinding halt. While many industry sectors projected and prepared for a steady decline in business, other areas boomed as demand increased at an unprecedented rate. Indubitably, and as is befitting during a pandemic, the healthcare industry revved up to deliver its best. Specifically within healthcare, administrators at all levels worked to establish the new normal for delivering care in a virtual world. Within this niche, administrative assistants for physician-scientists worked in overdrive. Calendars needed to be reorganized, conferences needed to be postponed, research teams and materials needed to be moved to online interfaces, and in-person meetings needed to be rescheduled to the videoconference platform of choice. The goal remained the same: to support the physician-scientists in all capacities so that they could continue to be their best version of clinicians and researchers. In many ways, this pandemic has highlighted the importance of effective administrative support to the functionality of the physician-scientist. Perhaps even giving some new insight into the prevailing issue of ‘saving’, what Jain et al have dubbed as, ‘the endangered physician-scientist’.1 Physician-scientists play an integral role in the medical community, they are often the protagonists that drive forward the narrative of medical discovery and novel therapies. However, in the last few decades, the evolving role of the physician-scientist and the overwhelming demands of the job have led to a steady decrease in the number of …