General practitioner at 65: ‘If I take my pension tomorrow, it’s a slump for my patients!’

For Christian Gilliard, as for a good number of his elderly colleagues, it is practically a matter of moral duty: “I have patients who have trusted me for 40 years, can I put the key under the doormat knowing that they may be refused by my colleagues who are already overwhelmed? You know continuity of care is very important with us… and I have cases that need to be monitored regularly, I don’t want them to end up without a solution tomorrow”.

As a result, Christian Gilliard decided to become “training supervisor” in order to be able to train young doctors with him and hope that one of them, one of them, will settle in the region tomorrow. But he specifies: “It’s not necessarily obvious and not necessarily feasible for all my colleagues… You have to train to be an approved internship supervisor, you have to transform your practice…these are investments of time and money.”

In any case, Christian hopes to be able to pass the baton in 4 or 5 years and between now and then, he will continue to practice by gradually reducing – at least that’s what he hopes – his working time. “But today, it would take 10 arms and 10 heads… because we are in the front row to see the malaise of society. And in this we feel that the burden is heavier today than there was. at 20 years”.

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