Perspectives of a surgeon: Who will perform my surgery in the future?
“I love my job, but I don’t want to practice it any longer under the current conditions.” This sentence, which you hear again and again in care, is no longer an isolated case. Rather, it has become an expression of a profound frustration that has established itself in the healthcare system for decades. Colleagues are increasingly leaving their jobs, not because they are working ondispleases, but because they are simply no longer willing to accept the unreasonable conditions. Many are looking for happiness elsewhere: You start studying, become a fitness trainer or switch to the office – the main thing is to get away from the stress that is now part of everyday life in nursing.
Fighting symptoms instead of solving the cause
The logical consequence of this development would be obvious: Working conditions need to be improved urgently. But instead of fundamental reforms, the famous patch is glued to the gaping wound. Nursing staff are recruited from abroad, integration and training programs for people from China, Mexico or the Philippines are set up. Behind it is theUnspoken assumption that these people tend to accept harsher conditions or simply have no choice. This is not just a cynical point of view – it is a sign of poverty for a rich country like Germany, which has been accepting the erosion of an entire professional field for years.
The emigration of the skilled workers and their fatal consequences
The reality looks even darker: Every year more nursing staff leave Germany than new people come from abroad. Who can go to Switzerland or Scandinavia, where working conditions, payment and appreciation are at a completely different level. German politics doesn’t seem to take this seriously enough or just don’t want to understand that you’re going to be able to do it at short noticesolutions and poorly paid guest workers does not fix a nursing shortage. The problem no longer only affects care, but also spills over to the medical field.
The erosion of medical continuity
As a surgeon, I’m increasingly wondering: Who will operate on me in an emergency? Can I trust that the person is sufficiently trained, experienced and motivated? I’ve seen a dramatic change in the last 16 years. It used to be a matter of course that a doctor was responsible for a ward and its patients for months or even years. Through the constant presenceOn site, he was able to perceive changes in the patient directly and reacted in a targeted manner. Today this continuity has been largely lost.
Working Hours Act: Curse and Blessing
The Working Hours Act, which doctors send home after 24 hours at the latest, makes sense in principle – no patient wants to be treated by a overtired doctor. But the price for this is high: patients experience a constant change of the treating doctors. The flow of information is disturbed, the responsibility becomes diffuse. Problems are often postponed, doctor’s letters end up with the one whois currently present. The organization is trimmed for efficiency, but not humanity or medical quality.
Loss of information and irresponsibility
The daily change of contact persons means that patients are no longer treated holistically, but only managed. Who is responsible anyway? Who knows what was discussed yesterday? Documentation replaces personal handovers, files become the most important means of communication – provided they are legible and complete. The risk of errors, misunderstandingsand dangerous information loss is increasing dramatically.
The loss of medical identity
“Work-life balance” may be a buzzword, but in medicine, the profession is more than just a job. It’s about responsibility, care and continuity. Today it has become the exception for a doctor to take in a patient and to accompany him to discharge. The “take care of yourself” becomes a side note, a luxury that hardly anyone can afford. The young medical professionals are working onStation to station, gains superficial experience in a few months without developing deeper clinical routine.
The failure of training – a system error
Young doctors in particular are on their own today. The close cooperation with experienced colleagues and nursing staff, learning at the patient’s bed and the step-by-step growing into responsibility – all of this is systematically prevented by time pressure and a lack of staff. Instead, the focus is on bureaucracy: documentation, billing, quality management. who doesn’tdocumented, allegedly did not work. But there is less and less time for the patients.
Craftsmanship and human human beings are lost
Medicine is a craft that requires experience, practice and guidance. If you don’t see and perform operations regularly, you can’t master them with certainty. Those who do not deal with the patients do not recognize any subtle changes. The system is increasingly preventing doctors and nurses from becoming real experts. Those who make mistakes are more likely to be sanctioned than supported.Anyone who asks is considered dependent. Whoever takes responsibility remains on his own.
The price of a failed health policy
What we experience is the result of years of disregard for reality. Germany invests far too little in its healthcare system, relies on short-term austerity measures and ignores the practical warnings. The consequences are fatal: More and more highly qualified specialists are turning away, and fewer and fewer young people are coming. Patients are smuggled through a system that is efficiencyabout empathy. Anyone who is in the hospital has long since ceased to be a patient, but rather a case number and cost factor.
The Outlook: Who will save us?
The question remains: Who will one day operate on me? Who takes responsibility, who really cares? As long as the basic conditions do not change, the misery will continue to intensify. It is not enough to get nursing staff from abroad or to tighten working time laws. What we need is a radical reversal: more time for patients, betterWorking conditions, fair pay and real appreciation – for doctors and nursing staff. Otherwise, the German healthcare system is threatened with a collapse, which is even more serious than the much-cited “nursing emergency”.
