Family Medicine Doctor, Croatia

I am a young doctor. This summer I finished my medical school and immediately started working in a family medicine clinic. Without a mentor, I worked double shifts right at the beginning. At first, I was scared of how to treat some conditions because in medical school we don't know what drug to prescribe as the first line agent, in what dose, and how many times a day. So it was challenging at the beginning.

As the time went on, I was starting to feel more and more secure about my practice, but there was still a lot of complicated cases with suspected malignant processes. The worst thing is, our health system is in a really bad place and, as a family medicine clinician, I felt helpless and I wasn't able to separate my personal life from my work life. Eventually, that led to extremely fast burnout.

After one month, I started to feel really intensive epigastric pain, which I never felt before. Luckily, I knew what to do, so I immediately started to take esomeprazole in double doses, however, the stress at work took its toll. Since the season of colder weather and respiratory infections is starting, the situation in the clinic has become more and more complicated. The volume of work grew every day, and I still did not know how to deal with all the situations that were not in my power to solve on my own.

What upset me most is that the system is overcrowded, and the doctor is powerless to speed up the process of diagnosis and therapy. Even when I tried to do something on my own, I constantly encountered obstacles. As time passed, I was more and more burdened. I even dreamed of patients at night and had nightmares that I made vicium artis. The situation culminated after two months when the epigastric pain became so active that I could no longer sleep because of the pain.

Between shifts at work I was in the hospital for urgent tests on myself because I could no longer live with the pain. After the whole process, my colleagues at the hospital told me that it was all the result of stress. That is the moment I realised I had to find some coping mechanism to handle everything I see at work.

Soon after I started to feel better, I had a situation where I had to read the pathohistological findings to the family and inform them that a family member had gastric adenocarcinoma. The whole experience brought me back to the beginning. Day by day, in the fight with the health system and everything that happens to me in the clinic, I find new ways to withstand this pressure and stay normal and healthy. It's not, but I think it's possible. I'm slowly moving towards that goal hoping for the best.