Opinion | The splendor of the medical profession seems to have disappeared

The charm of quality is timeless. Kitchens where the most delicious dishes are prepared. Workshops where gigantic masterpieces are placed on the canvas. Publishers where gold pencils fly around your ears or football teams where the trophy cabinet continues to swell every year. Those who, as a young man, lay in her bed dreaming of heroism and a little courage would one day try to get close to the fire. Hours of cutting onions, cleaning brushes, sorting out newspaper clippings or bleaching lines; it did not matter. Even though you were the youngest, the most inexperienced and therefore sometimes the most invisible, you belonged to a larger whole where something special was being done.

Although doctors’ prescriptions do not get a star and even the salary of a specialist doctor is far lower than that of Lionel Messi, medicine has always had the same appeal. Photo books full of children with stethoscopes and plastic scalpels at hand, determined to one day swap them for a real one. And medicine is still a popular study, and thousands of students start every year hoping to make their dream come true. And when you finally graduate after six long years and you can call yourself a doctor, the time has come for you to go to the kitchen. Closer to the fire.

Scarce and sought after

However, the luster appears to be slightly faded. Surgery has traditionally been a popular profession. Action, collaboration, ability to solve a problem. These are things that are easier to sell than some medical courses that you will only appreciate later in life. Vacancies for the elderly (the non-trainee medical assistant), ‘the youngest employee’, were therefore scarce and highly sought after, certainly in the Randstad. But for some months now, several vacancies have been opened in various hospitals and we must actively seek out young colleagues.

It’s true. Your alarm goes off at six and you have to change in a cubicle with other colleagues in faded clothes and a pair of clogs. Very different from a Van Moof bicycle and a bartender in your office garden that Uniform white with oat milk for you. There are also many old gentlemen and women surgeons who will train you with all kinds of stupid jobs because they care about their patients. Then sometimes you can’t fifteen minutes of vitamin D powerwalk around lunchtime. And if you’re called by a seriously ill patient at 5pm who even vomits half on you out of sheer pain, that’s not necessarily something to post on Insta. Right. But you belong to a larger whole where something special is done.

Making a mistake isn’t fun, but you learn something and others catch you

Last week I read in the newspaper that about 15 percent of young people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five feel lonely. It is referred to as an effect of the crown crisis. I’m not a psychologist, but when I look around I think the pandemic has made us even more capable of digitally isolating ourselves from the real world. My younger colleagues, and especially the group that chooses not to be my colleague anymore, are no less enthusiastic and have no less dreams. They seem to be less used to daily confrontations, failures, shameful moments that are irrevocably accompanied by a learning process. Calling someone on duty, losing an IV or making a mistake in front of a sold out – it’s not fun, but you learn something in a group and others catch you.

Read also: A good salary is not enough to attract staff

Generations need each other

Perhaps this generation has learned not to have so much faith in their “masters”. They choose more for themselves. Because what can actually be expected from a generation that consciously continues to use fossil fuels, continues to eat meat and quarrel with each other rather than seek a constructive solution?

Yet generations need each other. To learn from each other, but also to get satisfaction from things that cannot be captured in a number of likes or in a prestigious title. So, you are a young doctor and you feel alone, come and clean your brushes with us, we will take you Uniform white.