Marie (first name changed), 36 years old, a general practitioner for ten years, never wanted to open one Cabinet. She provides representation in the Lyon region and dedicates a few hours a week to teleconsultation.
As an employee of a platform, she earns between 300 and 700 euros per month. “It’s a salary supplement”, she admits. And Marie determines her schedule: “I organize myself according to my availability: If I make a replacement and there are not many people in the practice or if patients don’t keep an appointment, I connect to the platform. Sometimes I work from home for a few hours in the evenings or on Saturday mornings during the week. »
Across the Atlantic, 44-year-old Richard is a staff emergency room doctor at a hospital on a small island in the French West Indies and is radiant “800 euros to 1,000 euros” Almost every month and also take advantage of the moments of low: “I’m on call two days a month where nothing much happens. I take this opportunity to arrange a few meetings on the platform. »
Both know the limits of the exercise. “We help patients who don’t have a family doctor or who don’t want to or can’t wait for an appointment. With a good conversation we can make a good diagnosis and this is always better than self-medication.Marie explains. But in most cases, I advise the patient to go back if they don’t feel better the next day, because the clinical examination remains a priority. »
“Pill renewal, nasopharyngitis… It’s basic medicine, Richard added. But I see myself as the first resort: for example, if an ear infection occurs, I give an analgesic to relieve the pain while I wait for the patient to go to the doctor.. »
If Marie adopted this formula, it was also because of the security that remote consultation offers, as she sometimes felt threatened in practices by patients to whom she refused a stop or a prescription: “At least behind the screen, I’m not afraid of aggression. » Another advantage, in her opinion, is not to focus too much on the patient: “Not running my own practice relieves me mentally, I only see patients once, I don’t have to worry about them and their problems don’t haunt me when I’m on leave. »
For the two professionals, this distancing from traditional practice also results in a very bleak view of the status of the doctor in France. Richard spent more than ten years in hospital on mainland France and says he suffered from difficult working conditions and a lack of financial recognition. Maria also judges this “The treating doctor is not respected” by the public sector, which in their opinion pays poorly: “26.50 euros per consultation is an insult to the position and my skills. » Also from the patients who “Sometimes they come to us to buy medicine as if they were going to the supermarket.”
