Two excellent years of high school and an EBAU, six years of undergraduate studies (with the final TFG included), one of intense study to prepare for the MIR and four or five more as residents in a hospital. This is what, at a minimum, anyone who wants to enter the career of Medicineand which obviously represents a wear very important for which not everyone is prepared. For this reason, more and more initiatives are emerging that aim to help the resident in the care of their mental health.
In the Galatea Foundation have been working, since 2001, the year of their foundation, to provide individual and collective support to health professionals who present emotional discomfortmental illnesses and/or addictive behaviors. They do this through two ways: on the one hand, they have, at the healthcare level, their own clinic, which has a day hospital and a hospitalization unit with 22 beds. Furthermore, explains its president, Toni Calvolast January they expanded the outpatient consultation unit, because the pandemic also represented “a before and after” in the health of healthcare workers.
“In the last two years we have doubled the number of professionals served compared to the previous twenty of Fundación Galatea”
“In the last two years we have doubled the number of professionals served with respect to the previous twenty from the Galatea Foundation,” Calvo tells ConSalud.es. On the other hand, in 2017 the Foundation launched the emotional support service for health professionals, which consists of psychological care for non-serious cases, “although they can become serious depending on how they evolve.” And this includes, of course, both those who are preparing for the MIR entrance exam (“often entering into a very obsessive dynamic with themselves”) and those who are already residents, who, reports the president of the Foundation based in Barcelona, already represent the 14.6% of total queries that they receive every year in Catalonia.
“92% of the cases we deal with are due to some type of emotional or mental problem, while the rest are related to the substance use, mainly alcohol. Furthermore, 63% belong to the first or second year of residency,” indicates Toni Calvo. Furthermore, to try to cover all spectrums, last year it was also launched PAIMEa telematic psychological support service for medical students that was born as a result of the agreement reached with the Collegiate Medical Organization (OMC), Mutual Médica and the State Council of Medical Students (CEEM).
“We have the best prepared medical students in the world on a competency level, but on an emotional level there are important limitations”
In this case, 70% of the students served are in the last two years of the degree in Medicinethat is, when they are already in the middle of their internship period and beginning to prepare the MIR. Thus, it seems that, when it comes to requiring assistance, there is a common element with those who are already doctors: the beginning of the care activity. “I believe that we have the best prepared medical students in the world on a competency level, but on an emotional level.” there are important limitations“, says Toni Calvo.
“When they have to face not only the disease, but the patient themselves, that is where residents they suffer a lot: managing relationships, working as a team, giving bad news… they are very well trained to take care of us, but not for him. self careand this is one of the main objectives that we have at the Galatea Foundation: on the one hand, to try, at the postgraduate level, to influence them to have a greater awareness of the need to take care of oneselfand that is why we try to prepare materials and courses. On the other hand, to the extent of our possibilities, which are very limited, review the training curricula of doctors,” points out the Catalan expert.
EVERYTHING SUM UP
Nor does it help the mental health of residents. saturation that our health system is currently experiencing. In fact, Calvo acknowledges, many of the calls they receive are also related to burnouts or exhaustion, even from the residents themselves. “They are young people, in theory very fresh, but who are already suffering important cognitive and emotional alterations”, laments the president.
“Each person can build, with those resources and strategies that we give them from the Galatea Foundation, their own emotional protection team to handle situations of tension and stress.”
And he makes a metaphor: “It is as if they were players from the Madrid or Barcelona quarrywho supposedly have a lot of energy and capacity, but who at the same time suffer a very high percentage of problems. It is something disturbing and, of course, very worrying.” “During the pandemic there was a lot of talk about PPE, because we have what we call EPE: emotional protective equipment. Each one can build, with those resources and strategies that we give them from the Galatea Foundation, their own team to handle situations of tension and stress”, insists the psychologist.
They even have an application that allows healthcare professionals to do self check-in of the state of their emotional health or the relational health of their intervention team, and with information and articles to help them build that emotional protection team. For this reason, the president of the Galatea Foundation asks more support at the national levelso that all this help is not limited only to those in Catalonia, where since 1998 they have had resources from the Generalitat, and so that it can be extended to other professionals, such as nursing assistants. “This necessarily involves financing by the competent authorities.”