This is good news: a seamless transition to the practice has been achieved at the Templin Medical Center on Obere Mühlenstrasse. Dr. med. Sabine Wendland is retiring on October 1st and can hand over her practice to Ricarda Weil. The search for a successor was not so easy. There have been several applicants in the last five years. But some only wanted to work as employees, others preferred to go to the Baltic Sea.
Rooted in Templin
Ricarda Weil from Stuttgart was more of a chance encounter. Sabine Wendland met her while visiting a sick person in a nursing home and quickly struck up a conversation with her. After training as a nurse, five waiting semesters and studying medicine in Rostock, Ricarda Weil gained her first practical experience in Templin. First she worked at the Sana Clinic, later during her specialist training as a general practitioner as a training assistant in the practice of Dr. Annekathrin Möwius worked. She soon realized that she no longer wanted to leave here with her husband, who comes from Templin, and their small children. Self-employment was obvious. Only parental leave and exams delayed the step. Still, it wasn’t an easy decision, admits Ricarda Weil. After all, she too had to take risks. But she received great support from the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians and from Sabine Wendland.
Loans with interest of ten percent
“We were completely thrown into the deep end after the fall of communism,” says the latter, thinking back to her early days. The Berliner had studied at the Humboldt University and completed her four compulsory years in Bischofswerda. Together with her husband, she then moved north again to be close to her family. That’s how the two of them came to the Uckermark. Ultimately, her husband found work as a surgeon in the hospital and she as a general practitioner in the polyclinic. After 1990 she had to make a decision and, together with Dr. Petra Klinger brings a bit of a “polyclinic feeling” into self-employment. They initially founded a joint practice, which later became a practice group in which each doctor works on her own account, but both share the nursing team and consumption costs to this day.
Qualification as a palliative care physician
The statutory health insurance system, accounting and personnel management – everything was new territory for the young doctor. “I started with no reserves and had to take out a loan with ten percent interest,” the now 67-year-old thinks back. But there was more than enough work. An average of 1,000 patients visited the practice per quarter. Statistics say that Sabine Wendland has seen 22,900 patients in her 34 years as a statutory health insurance doctor. She now visits some patients at home when it is too difficult for the very elderly to come to the practice. Driven by the desire to provide good care for the aging population, the doctor took on additional responsibility. She worked with other established colleagues at KV Regiomed Geriatrics for almost ten years. She qualified as a palliative doctor and has been accompanying people on their final journey with the palliative care team of the Bonvital nursing service for seven years. “I will continue to do this in the next few months,” she assures.
Well-rehearsed team of nurses as support
The fact that she was able to hand over a well-run practice on October 1st is also thanks to the great team of nurses who say today: “We used to be colleagues, today we are friends.” The sisters would like to thank their outgoing boss and hope that their collaboration with the new doctor will be just as great. The well-rehearsed team and an experienced colleague at her side were the decisive argument for Ricarda Weil to take the step, says the 40-year-old. The contract with the practice partner has been signed. Now “only” the technology needs to be switched to Ricarda Weil in the first week of October so that from October 7th everything runs as Sabine Wendland’s patients are used to. She can then calmly look after the family with seven grandchildren, the property and pets.
