The bloody attack on March 11, 2004 in the capital of Spain was decisive in his professional career. Dr. Raquel Rodríguez Merlo (Madrid, 1973) is head of the Asturias Urgent Medical Care Service (SAMU), dependent on the Principality’s Health Service (Sespa). She is the mother of a fourteen-year-old teenager, in the interview that she follows, she recounts her experience in the field of emergencies and takes stock of her first year in Asturias.
– Why did you want to be a doctor?
– Well, I’m not aware of why I wanted to be a doctor. Since I was little, I asked the Kings for the doctors’ briefcase. But I couldn’t say why. And I don’t remember wanting to be anything else either. She also had no medical relatives.
– Did you ask the Kings for the emergency briefcase?
– (Laughter) That came later. It’s curious. All my family on my mother’s side worked in the old Tabacalera, now Altadis. I was born in Madrid and I have always lived in Madrid, until in September 2021 I came to work in Asturias.
– Where did you study?
– At the University of Alcalá de Henares, fantastic, the best years of my youth. I had a great time, studying and enjoying the university atmosphere of Alcalá, which all of us who studied there have imprinted on us. Those of the promotion keep in touch.
An emergency service has to respond to all situations, including those arising from a lack of responsibility
– What did you do at the end of the race?
– I got a good position in the MIR exam and started the specialty that I thought would be my future: dermatology. But life puts certain things in front of you that make you change course.
– And what did you put in front of him?
– The first thing that happened to me was a personal matter. I married my longtime boyfriend and we had to deal with a financial problem that had arisen. Since there were no guards in dermatology, I started working in an emergency area. I liked it, and the second year of my residency I quit dermatology. I focused on emergencies, but that required me to train in that discipline. Later I did a master’s degree in emergency medicine, I trained as much as I could, I also dedicated myself to giving courses and I entered the SUMMA112, in Madrid. And in 2004, when I was studying emergencies, the 11-M attacks arrived.
– How did you experience them?
– I did the master’s degree during the day and worked at night. After the explosions, it was like a war situation. They called everyone who was available. They called me and I stood at the Atocha station. I had previously worked at SUMMA112 and had done many shifts. I got to work and in that situation, despite everything that was happening around me, I didn’t get blocked. That made me think that this was what I had to do, what I had to dedicate myself to. That day marked an end and a beginning in my life.
– Did you know that day that you were made for emergency medicine?
– Exact. There were many people with similar professional profiles. But it turned out that some of us resolved those situations and others did not.
– And it was not a matter of knowledge…
– Not only that, it was about having the ability to abstract yourself from what was around you, establishing one priority after another, knowing how to help people… There were colleagues who, let’s say, deserted at that time; They said to themselves: “This is not my thing.” Very complex patients, children, babies… Extremely tough situations that put you to the test. And you make a decision.
– And what happened from then on?
– That I consolidated the position in SUMMA112, at first as an interim. I knew that the opposition was going to come out and I needed a specialty that would rent me and give me the ability to enter public health, and I passed the Emergency and Emergency Physician opposition. Since our specialty of Emergency and Emergency Medicine had not yet been created, and still has not been created, contrary to what happens in the rest of the European countries, I went to Ireland. They evaluated what I had done in residence, the rest of my training and the work experience I had, and I entered the Naas Hospital in Dublin. I was less than a year because many things validated me. And so I have a European specialty that does not exist here.
There should be unity between 112 and health emergencies; would give us a few minutes that can be very important for the patient
– What are the characteristics of an emergency physician or emergency physician?
– The first thing, to be able to act under stress. Then, the ability to work in a team; to distinguish what is more serious and emerging, and prioritize. You have to be able to face a patient who, very often, cannot express himself, and you have to find out what he needs based on the symptoms, appearance… You have to know how to understand, act and manage the patient at his critical moment . And, I already said, work as a team, because you can’t do much by yourself. Your hands and your other eyes are your equipment: the nursing staff, the EMTs… Without them, it is very difficult for an emergency doctor to have full capacity for urgent care.
– Do you remember any particular situation in which it was very difficult to get it right the first time?
– That expression of getting it right the first time does not exist for us. We didn’t get it right, we didn’t get the crystal ball. It is something else. It is an intuition based on experience and training. Sometimes your intuition fails you. Sometimes the clinical symptoms are deceiving. Of course, there are cases that go very different paths than what you expect. There are strokes or myocardial infarctions that give very infrequent symptoms. What happens is that, when the patient is seriously ill, as you proceed, you diagnose.
– Does the specialty of emergency medicine condition your personal life a lot? It is a way of life?
– Definitely. You give importance to other things in life. You have seen such serious things, you have seen the fragility of life, what it means to be alive now and not be alive the next minute, that when you are at home what you want is your moment, to be with your family, with your friends, enjoying of the moment; in my case, being with my daughter… I imagine that there are other medical specialties in which the same thing happens: pediatric oncology, for example…
– Do you become a lover of improvisation?
– I don’t think so, everyone is as they are.
– And lover of risk?
– No not at all. There are things that in my emergency training I could have done and I don’t feel like it at all. For example, I would never work in a high mountain rescue helicopter or in an underwater rescue team. Also, I don’t like closed spaces, collapsed structures. All of that makes me claustrophobic, although if I had to, I’d try.
– More difficult scenarios for a doctor in your specialty?
– There are several. For an emergency professional, it is very difficult not to be able to help because you cannot endanger your own life either. And then having a child changes many things. From the outset, you have to adapt to the emotionality of the child in a situation…