Doctor Marek Kajan has been working for the second year at the Merciful Brothers hospital in Bratislava, which is the first non-state church hospital in Slovakia. It is a relatively small and well-equipped hospital in the center of Bratislava.
In the interview, he describes how surprised he was that finding a job was not easy at all. He describes his first experiences as a doctor and also surprises with patients.
“In medicine, you are not responsible for anything, and the day after you arrive at the hospital, you can kill someone if you make a mistake. You are responsible for those people. You get used to it after a while,” he says.
You are working in the hospital for the second year. What does the life of a young doctor look like?
I’m starting my third year now. They are “foffers”. When I was a student, I imagined medical life a little differently. Everyone told us during our studies that there was a shortage of doctors and that they would accept us everywhere. And since I am a man, I will have an easier time with employment than my female classmates. Unfortunately, such distinctions are still made between men and women. When I applied for a job, I was surprised that no one wrote me off. That stunned me. Of course, I’m in the capital and there are more requests, it’s different in smaller hospitals and cities.
In what?
The management of the hospitals or departments there approach the medics who have interned with them to see if they would like to accept a job. I submitted several applications in Bratislava and I didn’t even get a response to some of them. Some wrote to me that they did not have a vacancy. Finally, I joined the Hospital of the Merciful Brothers in the Old Town to the surgical department, where they were very accommodating. They wrote me back, I was interviewed and they hired me.
In other hospitals, I also encountered such an attitude that they turned me down because of a lack of places, and then, when I already had another job, they told me that I could join. Although we had no previous agreement, they just called me to come sign the contracts. I was surprised that it worked that way.
What surprised you about those two years in the hospital?
These two years were great. I still feel like I’m a doctor, and I’m learning something new every day. We have a very good team. Since we are a smaller hospital, there is a family atmosphere and they took care of us in the beginning so that we could be ready for the work pace as soon as possible.
Did you encounter the fact that they had a different approach to your classmates? I ask because surgical fields are also known to be physically demanding.
My classmates decided on fields other than surgery. One went to urology, which is partly a surgical field. They took her there without any problems. At one interview, they straight up told me that they would rather take a man than a woman. It’s an experience
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