On Tuesday, May 2, Vasiliki performed her first duties as a doctor at the hospital. The next day talking to “K” he remarked, “I haven’t figured it out yet. It was a bit chaotic but I felt very helpful. I contacted patients, took blood. Now I’m full, although I’m very tired. He continued, “It was a continuous stream of incidents. People kept coming. I drank a lot of coffee to get through the night. At some point, the sun came out, and then I realized that a new day had come, and I was constantly on my feet.

Vasiliki Zafeyropoulou is a graduate of the Medical School of Patras and since Wednesday, April 26, she has been working at the 4th Pathology Clinic of Evangelismos Hospital as part of a preliminary six-month pilot clinical practice program for young doctors, which has already begun to be implemented from the end of April in selected hospitals in the country. In her early days as a doctor in a hospital, she was impressed by the bureaucracy. “Didn’t expect. To pass any exam, you have to go through a series of procedures. Order, print, etc. I was also impressed by this feeling that you are helping. I didn’t feel that as a medical student. I feel like there really is something I do, and it fills me.”

Mara Kurkunaki, who recently returned from Bucharest, where she studied at the Medical Faculty of the Carol Davila University, has been working for 15 days at the G. Births” within the framework of the same program. What surprised her was the workload. As he says in “K”“in “Gennimatas” you will certainly get a lot of experience, but you can also see that it is very difficult. There is a lot of work and you think that “I’m lucky that I came, because the clinic needs doctors and therefore I also help” .

The main reason for Vasiliki Zafeiropula, Mara Kurkunaki, as well as Cleopatra Bakali and Marianne Marra (who were assigned to CAT and Korgyalenio-Benakio respectively) to participate in the program was to be better prepared and have more experience in the exercises. medicines for the time they need to perform agricultural work. “We are the COVID generation,” they say, noting that due to the pandemic they have lost time from clinical practice as medical students. Announce everything with a “K” that their intentions are to work-study abroad even for a few years. Only one states with confidence that after graduation she wants to work in the National Social Service.

The reason why they apply abroad is that here they will have to wait a long time to enter the specialty. “The average wait is 4-5 years, with the exception of specialties measured with the fingers of one hand, such as radiology, anesthesiology, general medicine. If you don’t want to do one of these specialties, going abroad is not an option, it’s a one-way street,” emphasizes Marianna. Cleopatra characteristically mentions: “A friend from school is learning Italian in order to go abroad. I study French. Another doctor friend is learning German.”

The pilot implementation of the program was institutionalized last December by the Law of the Ministry of Health on Secondary Care and Medical Education (Law 4999/2022). This is a preclinical training program for doctors who have graduated from the Faculty of Medicine since January 2022 and have not started their specialty and have not completed rural (rural) service. The pilot phase of the program lasts six months.

“I think the experience I get in CAT will help me a lot if I find myself in the doctor’s office by myself, to be able to stand on my own two feet.”

“In the United Kingdom, the relevant program (founder) is two years”, notes on “K” Deputy Minister of Health Mina Gaga and continues: “This is about an internship for a doctor who is not a student, since he has received a degree. Yes, he can prescribe, plan operations, practice Medicine with the patient, but it’s good to do it in a protected environment and with some people who have the relevant experience and will show him.

As Ms. Gaga explains, the pilot program includes four months of training in pathology clinics under the supervision of a doctor, but with the duties of a specialist doctor. “Take medical history, study comorbidities, talk to other doctors and attend consultations for cancer patients or other difficult cases,” she says. There is also a two-month clinical practice in the surgical direction, one of which is in the department of anesthesiology. “Something we are planning to do is to link the program with interactive education on major diseases and events such as diabetes, myocardial infarction, asthma attack, and with the use of appropriate technological equipment, such as, for example. interactive tables.

At this stage, 24 hospitals across the country are participating in the program, 122 positions of doctors have been approved. Of these, 30 positions concern five hospitals in Athens (Evangelismos, “G. Gennimatas”, Korgyaleneio – Benakeio, Ippokratio and KAT), where its implementation has already begun after a request for interest in doctors and a lottery to select who to participate.

Cleopatra Bakali, 25, who graduated from Athens Medical School last July, is among those invited and will work for the next six months at CAT. “I wanted to participate in the program because I understand that when we come out of medicine, we don’t have the proper experience with patients, especially if our countryside is in a remote location. In Greece, wherever you go, there is tourism everywhere. This means a large number of cases in medical facilities and in some cases complex cases. I believe that the experience that I will get in CAT will help me a lot if I find myself in the clinic alone, to be able to stand on my own two feet.” emphasizes the “K” and adds“I have friends who have started farming and sometimes they are ‘dropped out.’ They have to send sick people to the nearest hospital.”

“Generation COVID”

At the Athens Medical School, six years of study are divided into three years of theoretical studies and three years of practical training in clinics. “However, COVID-19 came, so we spent even less time in clinics,” he notes. Marianna Marra, a graduate of the Athens Medical School, who was assigned to the Korgialenio-Benakeio hospital as part of the program, agrees. “We are the COVID generation. We have lost a lot of clinical experience. The program is good because we will go elementary prepared for agricultural work. We don’t go straight into the depths,” he notes.

“Especially in the last years of school, the volume of knowledge that we had to learn by reading was so great that as a result we didn’t have time to practice anymore,” Vasiliki notes and adds: “I remember very well, characteristically, that in the last year I’m in a hurry to leave the hospital so I can go home and read.” According to him, “many times in the structures where we are engaged in agricultural work, there is no necessary personnel or necessary equipment. This is even more burdensome for the former student, now a rural doctor, who does not yet have the necessary knowledge and experience.”

The long wait for a specialty sends them abroad

All four young doctors with whom “K” spoke they declare their desire to go abroad, even if only for a few years, to start training in their specialty. And this is because in Greece the wait for most specialties is very long. A doctor who wants to specialize in dermatology at Sigros Hospital may have to wait 8 to 10 years. In endocrinology, the wait in some centers also reaches ten years, while, for example. for gynecology, the wait at a center like Alexandra Hospital is 4 to 5 years. In contrast, for specialties such as general medicine, radiology, anesthesiology and pulmonology, there is no waiting list.

“The system makes me look for another occupation, look for somewhere else to go,” says Mara Kurkunaki, who wants to become an endocrinologist. For her, the first thought is abroad – after all, as she points out, she has relevant study experience – where the start of specialization occurs after exams and interviews of candidates. “I have been thinking about going abroad for at least a few years. Then I would like to return,” he notes.

“I think it’s a shame what’s happening with the expectation of a specialty. The fact that the average waiting time in Greece is 4-5 years strongly encourages us to look for a solution abroad. At this stage of our life, there is no way out. This is a one-way street,” says Marianna. In the same context, Cleopatra continues, “when we graduated, the school told us, ‘We know you’re going to leave, but we want you to come back.’ I didn’t like hearing it. Most of us wish we didn’t have to leave. Abroad is a necessity, it is not really a choice.”

Marianna is the only one who is determined to work for the NSS upon her return from abroad, and this is because she is interested in an academic career. Vasiliki, while not completely excluding the NHS, seems to lean more towards the private sector, as does Cleopatra. However, both acknowledge that the NHS offers the physician greater experience and, under certain conditions, opportunities for scientific advancement.

They are even positive about the opportunity to work in a public hospital on a part-time basis. “I would definitely think about it. ESY gives you an incredible experience. A private doctor will not see as many cases as an NHS doctor. And the public has a lot of trust in doctors in the public sector,” Cleopatra emphasizes. Vasiliki adds that “an individual will not be able to cooperate with other doctors so easily. And thanks to this cooperation, our science is certainly progressing.”