“Hang on in there.” 25-year-old Isabelle Bakkum has heard her parents and friends say this regularly lately. In a couple of weeks’ time, she can call herself a Doctor of Medicine. After six years of studying and doing internships, Bakkum is now finished, although this will be followed by a specialisation – still to be decided. But her thesis having been submitted, she still has to compile her portfolio and do her last internship in Venlo, at Internal Medicine. “The first eight weeks I spent on the ward, now another two weeks at the Accident and Emergency department (A & E). That is very different. I see new patients every day for whom I get to discover what is wrong by asking them questions. On a ‘normal’ ward, a doctor has usually already done this.”
Bakkum’s day begins at 8:15 hrs. “That is when the transfer takes place and all new admissions that arrived in the night are discussed.” After that, she goes to the actual A & E department: making a round of all the patients. As an intern, Bakkum is continually under supervision. She is allowed to do things by herself, but it is always checked afterwards. “But I don’t have to take responsibility. Soon, I will. As an intern there is more room for mistakes, as an assistant physician that is a lot less. I am going to miss that.”
So many different complaints, accompanied by all kinds of different stories. Which one is most memorable to her? “In my first internship at Respiratory Medicine, a patient came in suffering from tightness of the chest. It seemed like pneumonia that fits in with HIV, but the patient did not fit within the parameters of the high-risk group. Still, we continued on that course and it indeed turned out to be HIV. What I learned from that? You should never have preconceived ideas. Everyone can get all kinds of things.”