Catherine Y. Spong, MD

The number of COVID-19 cases continues to increase, in part due to recent holiday gatherings; new more contagious strains; and exhaustion with social distancing.

With the beginning of 2021, we are eager for a resolution to the pandemic.

What a year 2020 has been! We hope to look back on it and recognize it as an outlier or anomaly—hoping life will at some point return to normal.

The very measures used to prevent the spread of COVID-19 increase the risk of depression and suicidal thoughts: economic stress, social isolation, decreased access to community, barriers to mental health treatment, and illness.

As detailed in the September issue, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) is highlighting one of these situations: the role of activity restriction in obstetric management.

In this month's issue, Contemporary OB/GYN Editor-in-Chief Dr. Catherine Y. Spong talks about the ways in which women's health research has and continues to be marginalized. Addressing these inequalities, Dr. Spong says, demands a change of culture led by committed and accountable leadership.

As a pandemic and protests converge, there is a need to recognize long-term effects.

As we are now incorporating the new post-COVID-19 “normal” into our routines, our editor-in-chief, Dr. Catherine Spong, reflects on parallels with changes that went into play with the identification and management of patients with HIV.

Editor-in-Chief Catherine Y. Spong, MD, gives her perspective on what ob/gyns can learn from the pandemic as the specialty is business as usual in an otherwise stark hospital.

In her first editorial as editor in chief of Contemporary OB/GYN, Dr. Catherine Spong discusses her vision for the magazine and provides an update for treating ob/gyn patients during the coronavirus pandemic.