The COVID-19 pandemic required healthcare systems to adapt in order to confront an unknown pathogen. The medical and scientific community found itself in the position of having to develop a new body of knowledge while, at the same time, providing responses without being able to rely on a solid base of experimental evidence. Alongside the response of the scientific community and institutions, the early stages of the pandemic also saw the bottom-up production of knowledge by healthcare professionals directly engaged with patients. This research aims to investigate the relationship between knowledge production, peer learning, and the quest for legitimacy within the scientific and professional community, in a moment marked by epistemic rupture and the absence of validated knowledge. The empirical case focuses on the production and circulation of knowledge within a spontaneously formed network of general practitioners (GPs) in Northern Italy during the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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