Viewpoint in 2020

At Nature Reviews Urology, we have pledged to strive towards improving diversity in our field. As a step towards this goal, this Viewpoint presents the experiences of 10 Black urologists. Their stories illustrate the importance of perseverance and emphasize the essential role of community and mentorship to raise up our peers and colleagues, to support and encourage Black urologists and lead to a more diverse field of urology in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly put a strain on relationships. For some couples, lockdown has meant long periods of separation, whereas for others, lockdown has resulted in months of isolation together. In this Viewpoint, three experts consider the effects of the pandemic on relationships and suggest ways in which lockdown can become a positive experience for couples making love in the time of corona.

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared SARS-CoV-2 and its associated disease, COVID-19, a global pandemic. Across the world, governments took action to slow the spread and hospitals rushed to accommodate an influx of patients with this highly infectious and lethal disease. The urology departments in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, and Herlev and Gentofte, Copenhagen, Denmark — which are linked by the pre-existing CopMich Collaborative — had to respond with massive changes to the organization, staffing and workload of their teams. In this Viewpoint, authors from different urological subspecialties and at different career stages reflect on their experiences during the pandemic. Although their countries’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic differed radically, the similarities between the responses in Copenhagen and Michigan demonstrate the universal characteristics of medicine and the value of teamwork, flexibility and collaboration.