Newsroom
A rewarding choice - Dr Martjin Pfaff
Martjin had worked in South Africa as an intern, and thought he knew what to expect from the experience iif he were to come back. But as he puts it, “I expected a good thing and it’s been even better than I expected.”
There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, he is able to get much more exposure to patients and to difficult medical problems than he would in the Netherlands. This, he says, “gives you the opportunity to learn much more than you would back home in the same amount of time.”
It is also important for him that, at Ngwelezane, there are a number of departments which he has found “live up to first world standards”. This allows him to take better care of patients than he would in many other situations.
Part of the attraction is also just being in a different place. “I think its always good to spend some time away from your own country and be in a completely different setting – it makes you put things in perspective and look at things in a different way, and I think that’s a very important part of being here.”
South Africa’s tourism potential also has a big role to play. “I enjoy the good weather, the game parks. That’s also a big part of living and being out here, that we enjoy the country very much. It’s the whole combination of the work and the lifestyle we can live here that makes us come out here.”
For Martjin, the biggest drawbacks are the fact that, “you do lose patients and you can’t always take good care of your patients because you don’t know what’s going on or you’re too inexperienced.”
Crime is also a problem: “Coming from the Netherlands, I’m coming from a very safe country myself, that might make you change your outlook in living here”.
However, he feels that organisations like the RHI are doing a lot to ensure that people understand the situation that they are getting into. “I think, in general, the foreign doctors that come out and work here are quite well prepared, they know what they’re getting into. They’re not caught by surprise by the situation.”
