There’s something special about that working during the summer, especially now that the pandemic has loosened its grip. Despite the reduced number of places and reduced staffing levels, I am once again reminded of the very best of working as a healthcare practitioner. It may seem paradoxical, but removing all the extra tasks leaves more time for all the things that, in my opinion, make the medical profession one of the best professions in the world. Patient meetings can drag on and get bogged down in side stories that are not relevant to the history, but are worthwhile. Conversations flow easily with holiday-relaxed colleagues. Cooperation between different clinics is smoother, there is time to pause and hear how completely new colleagues enjoy their new profession, and if the heat wave hyponatremia does not occur, there is time to make more unusual internal medical diagnoses to set.

Sometimes it even happens that in the summer in the medical clinic of the big hospital we have enough places, and then life is easy. You will find the same convenience during the night shift, where you can concentrate here and now on the patient in front of you and it is all about solving problems together with colleagues.

Although in a very different guise, I also think of jobs in circumstances with fewer resources, such as during my time in a hospital in eastern Congo for Doctors Without Borders. The common denominator is of course the meaning that the job takes on if you can concentrate on the core tasks. And the thought strikes me: How would healthcare work if we had to do it all year round?