2023-09-02 06:00:42
It has cost her a lot (a “turbulent” process, she defines it) but in the end the extremeña Bertha Dominguez (badajoz1994) has obtained a place to train as a Resident Internal Physician (MIR) in Madrid, following they would deny him to do it in the specialty that he had chosen by note, Family and Community Medicine at the Hospital 12 de Octubre, also in Madrid, because of his disability. An accident in a swimming pool left her a quadriplegic and she is in a wheelchair.
“I am a quadriplegic and they tell me that I cannot be a doctor without proving what I am capable of”
She even signed the contract but the day she was going to join they called her to inform her that the agreement was broken because she was not suitable for the position. ANDIt was the second time that she was forced to give up her dream. She always wanted to be a surgeonLike his father, from whom his passion for medicine comes. He took her to an operation when she was only 16 years old and from that day she knew that she wanted her life to be spent in an operating room. Her quadriplegia prevented her from doing so, but it also prevented her from being a family doctor. She was then advised to change her specialty. She asked for Psychiatry, Radiodiagnosis, Nephrology, Allergology and Nuclear Medicine, which she believed she might practice and liked. But they did not accept him in any because they were already occupied. The only one in which you might train because there was a place was in Preventive Medicine.
He requested to do it at the Ramón y Cajal as it was closer to his home, but that position was also occupied. There was only one vacancy left at the Rey Juan Carlos University Hospital. “Surely with my note I might have chosen that vacancy (the one at Ramón y Cajal) but I had put family medicine before without knowing that due to my disability I might not do it”, he resigns himself. C.He managed to join the position on July 24, two months following what he should have done, but he has finally started his training.
«At first I did not know anything regarding this specialty but it has been quite an experience. It is beautiful and covers many things. I did not know that a health specialty might cover the issue of works within the hospital or even outbreaks of epidemiological diseases in the community», tells this newspaper. As he explains, there is a network between hospitals through which all the information of the community of Madrid is shared and that allows to know what is happening in terms of infections throughout the territory.
Other occupational health examination
Prior to joining as well had to undergo an occupational health study, although in King Juan Carlos everything was much better. «It had nothing to do with it. I was examined first by a nurse and then by two doctors, who asked me all kinds of questions. The hospital adaptation technician came to measure my chair, they asked me all the needs I might have and they told me all the adaptations I might have for those needs. They even offered to give me their private contact so that, if I had any questions, I might contact them,” he says.
This exam was carried out on July 17 but it was not incorporated until the 24th because the hospital wanted to make sure that all the positions that it was going to pass through were adapted, to prevent him from having to re-examine each time he changed locations. And it is that training in Preventive Medicine is different from other specialties: the first year you have to study a master’s degree, the second consists of a hospital rotation and the last two in extra-hospital rotations in public health services.
“I have no more poison to spit out but I want to continue fighting so that it does not happen once more”
She is now in the second phase. She has had to skip the first one for the moment because she is waiting to find a university where she can do the master’s degree, since the building where she was going to study it in Madrid is under construction and is not accessible for people with mobility reduced (the years of formation can be interchanged). They found another in Valencia, but the Ministry of Health says that the training is not compatible. «I do not understand it because it is assumed that training in Spain as MIR is unified and the training of a doctor who is trained in Valencia would have to be compatible with that of the rest of the doctors who are trained in other autonomous communities. The Valencia master’s degree begins in September and we are seeing how we can solve it, ”he complains.
The problems do not stop for this MIR but at least in the hospital everything has been made easier. It has an adaptation for the computer mouse, which is controlled with the joystick of his chair; another for mouse clicks; they have installed a surface (“a kind of Ipad”) so that the double screen of the computer is tactile and can also be operated from there as well as with the mouse. AND It also has a height-adjustable table, which allows it to adopt different positions. «I can be with my legs normal, crossed, raised on top of a chair in case my blood pressure drops, … And the table gets to the height that I want with the click of a button, so I don’t need anyone to help me regulate it», Explain. She also has help with going to the bathroom and “my classmates help me first time with everything I ask of them,” she adds.
Her stay in the hospital has only reaffirmed that she was fit to practice clinical medicine. «When they told me that I mightn’t do CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) I told them that I had enough communication skills so that, if someone needed it, they would suggest to another person how to do it. Something similar has happened to me here, I have had very strong spasms, clonus (involuntary appearance of repetitive and rhythmic muscle contractions), my blood pressure has dropped, … And I have been completely able to tell my colleagues what they had to do because These are situations that, even though they are within medicine, a doctor is not used to experiencing or resolving them»underline.
That is why he denounces that “the formation of the MIR is obsolete” and that “it should be more versatile.” «It is not that, if you do not meet all the characteristics, you are not suitable for the position, but that you should see what you can contribute beyond what that training program is. In my case, from my point of view as a patient, I might contribute many things to a clinical and medical specialty such as family medicine.who treats so many patients in so many different situations, “he reproaches.
His dream is not forgotten
His life has been turned upside down. She is still sedentary because she spends the day on a chair but “I am learning to be more professional and have more responsibilities. Except for the early mornings, I am really enjoying this stage », she admits. It is not being easy because the schedules are incompatible with his rehabilitation, which he has left on the back burner since he started working, what is causing swelling problems in the legs, digestive or circulation.
He has gotten a doctor’s position but it still hasn’t been his best year. “I already had all of that and they took it from me for no objective reason, that doesn’t go out of my head and it continues to take its toll on me”, says. And he feels helpless because his fight did not work: «I expected more, that there would be some change, that someone would say something. And the only thing I have seen has been an interview with the Minister of Health saying that all the rights of the disabled were guaranteed in access to the MIR. I don’t agree but I can’t go that high », he laments.
Now he doesn’t feel strong enough to continue his fight. “I have no more poison to spit out but when I start to feel better and have that spark once more, I will have to keep fighting,” ensures. His life, she says, “never stops being bumpy”: “The only thing I can do is keep cushioning and staying in shape and with a very cool head so that I can get past them and move on with life”sentence.
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