The major consultation “Ma France 2022” brought to light your concerns in the final stretch before the presidential election. Health comes second, behind the probity of elected officials. And in health the question of medical deserts often appears in your proposals. “We must strongly encourage young general practitioners and specialists to settle in medical deserts” believes Baptiste, 27. For Jacqueline, “we need more doctors, gynecologists, dentists, physiotherapists in the countryside”. Julien Dassé, he has always wanted to settle “in a rural environment”, at home in the Nord-Médoc. He opened a practice in Queyrac three years ago after his studies.
“This is my first installation, it was important to me to return to my region”, explains the young doctor of 32 years. Right away, he chooses a group practice, not imagining setting up alone: so that his patients always have a doctor to contact even when he is absent and so as not to risk the exhaustion of the doctors who fight alone every day in these areas so poorly provided in caregivers. They are therefore four in this firm which was born in June 2019.
More than a general practitioner, a family doctor
“I am an exception” laughs Julien Dassé: a young doctor who chooses to settle in the countryside as soon as he finishes his studies. “I found it normal to come back to help my village and neighboring villages, with this risk of medical desert”. he explains. When he opens his practice, the last doctor of Queyrac has just retired. “I had more than 1,000 patients in a few months, which is within the French norm, but now that it’s a medical desert, we find patients with more than 3,000 patients, which is too big for a single patient. general practitioner”.
Doctor Dassé quickly finds his marks on this territory which he knows well: “It’s curious and gratifying to have patients we’ve known since childhood. Now, I’m the attending physician for my former teachers, friends of my grandparents. It’s doing a service to people I know them, care for them, help them on a daily basis. I really am the family doctor, which solves more than health problems”.
A success for three years
The firm, located in a house in the village, close to the town hall, is always full. “It’s a pleasure to have this group of doctors in the village”, comments Pierre, a patient who arrived in the Médoc four years ago and who has just found his doctor thanks to the practice. If he limits his patient base, Julien Dassé knows perfectly well that it could be much more important as the needs are strong. He therefore sees bigger: a fifth general practitioner will soon join the team and from the summer, will come the turn of paramedics (physiotherapist, psychologist, osteopath, etc.) and specialists.
– Marie Rouarch
Specialists, this is also what is missing the most, underlines Jean-Michel, who is looking for an ENT for his 96-year-old dad. “I thought I would find one in Lesparre-Médoc but there is none, he laments. The closest is in Blanquefort but as all the Médoc goes to Blanquefort, this doctor cannot keep up!”
Encourage the installation in the countryside rather than constrain
So should doctors be forced to set up in rural areas? Bad idea decides Doctor Dassé, who rather pleads for incitement, financial via installation aid to be developed, via the cessation of night shifts, via internships in these group practices, to show young interns that “rural medicine is not a dirty word”. This is also the reason why he aims to soon become a training supervisor.
Three years after his return to his land, Julien Dassé absolutely does not regret his choice. And he plans for the long term. Enough to satisfy the mayor of the town, Véronique Chambaud, who sees in it an undeniable source of “dynamism” for Queyrac: an attraction for the arrival of new inhabitants and activity for the shops of the village, which benefit from the passage of patients, the bakery or the pharmacy.