An old friend asked Dr. Friedrich Weihenruh, a seasoned psychotherapist of considerable life experience, to help his niece Flurina find a new sense of purpose.
The transition from medical school to the daily reality of medical practice had traumatized the young physician. Resident physicians, he said, were being physically and psychologically destroyed in a climate of fear and exploitation.1,2 "Instead of specialist training, what they experience is indentured servitude," was the friend's assessment — even though a parliamentary initiative had called for "Humane Working Conditions for Resident Physicians" as far back as 1998.3
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Dr. Weihenruh had cleared his afternoon when the doorbell of his practice rang.
"Your uncle tells me you are looking for a new beginning," Dr. Weihenruh said in greeting to the young physician.
"Yes," she replied. "Every year, more and more doctors decide not to enter the profession at all after passing the federal examination in human medicine. Now I've had enough, too. I am sick of the exploitation."
"I understand that well, Flurina," said Dr. Weihenruh with a sympathetic smile. "Would you allow me to invite you on a forest walk? We can think together about how you might more happily recoup the investment of six years of your life and 750,000 francs of taxpayer money."
"Gladly," she agreed. And so Dr. Weihenruh and the young woman stepped out of the practice and made their way toward the forest.
The narrow path, covered by a soft carpet of leaves and needles, led them quickly beneath the sheltering canopy of old beeches and oaks. Sunlight fell in slanting columns through the crowns and painted shimmering patterns on the ground.
"I am not going to ask you why you are giving up," Dr. Weihenruh opened the conversation as they breathed in the resinous scent of the pines, "because I know all the good reasons. Regrettably, those who bear responsibility for this situation have no interest in addressing the causes; instead, they compound their folly by threatening to extort those who leave medical servitude into repaying the cost of their studies."
"Yes," Flurina nodded, her voice sounding relieved at being understood.
"Then let us leave the sick healthcare system," Dr. Weihenruh nodded as well, "which we cannot change, to its decline, and turn our attention to your talents for an alternative life plan."
He paused briefly and pointed to the tiny, luminous red cap of a fly agaric mushroom glinting through the moss. "Beauty is often found off the beaten path."
"How did you do on your examination?" Dr. Weihenruh asked as they walked on.
"I was in the tenth decile," Flurina answered.
"You scored higher than 90 percent of all the others?"
"Yes, that's correct."
Dr. Weihenruh nodded in acknowledgment. "And which specialty were you planning to pursue?"
"Pediatrics."
"Then many children have lost a jewel of a pediatrician?" Dr. Weihenruh waited to see how Flurina would respond.
Flurina smiled, and for the first time her smile appeared carefree. "Not really. I want to have children of my own, too."
"Children?" Dr. Weihenruh emphasized the plural.
Flurina took a deep breath, her gaze softening as she answered: "Well, at least five."
Dr. Weihenruh laughed softly and warmly. The sound seemed to mingle with the rustling of the leaves.
"Five. That is not a plan; that is a statement. Your own little mass migration. I am impressed."
They came to a clearing where young birches danced in the wind.
"If you are planning an expedition of this magnitude, then the first question is not where the journey leads, but who your co-pilot is. Have you already drawn up a requirements profile for the father of these five children?"
Flurina giggled. "A requirements profile? That sounds so technical."
"A project of this scale demands excellent personnel," he replied with a twinkle in his eye. "Your diagnostic ability is first-rate. Let us apply it to the search for a man. What qualities would this man need to possess so that 'Project Future' doesn't fail before it starts?"
She reflected as they took a steeper ascent. Her breathing quickened.
"Well… he couldn't be a careerist who collapses on the couch every evening, spent. He would have to truly love children — not just as an abstract idea. And humor — without that, nothing works at all. Humor is a survival skill."
Flurina gazed up into the treetops and tilted her head. "He would have to understand the idea of a woman who hangs up her medical degree to start a family not as failure, but as the greatest compliment a woman can pay a man."
She paused. "And he should be good with his hands. With five children, something is always breaking."
"A very precise diagnosis," Dr. Weihenruh commended. "Humor, presence, appreciation, and a talent for repairs. That sounds like a rare specimen. Where, do you think, does one find such a man? Presumably not in the emergency rooms of hospitals or on the golf courses of chief physicians."
"Certainly not," Flurina laughed. "Maybe rock climbing? Or in a society that restores old timber-framed houses? Or at a self-defense class, because he's interested in security?"
"You see?" said Dr. Weihenruh, stopping before a mighty old oak whose bark resembled the wrinkled skin of a wise face. "You are already thinking like a forest walker. You are not searching where the masses search, but where the probability of quality is highest. You are laying bait that only the right kind of quarry will take. Your hunting grounds are not the noisy marketplaces but the quiet refuges where character grows."
Dr. Weihenruh halted, his gaze following a large bird circling majestically above the slope. "Do you see him up there?"
Flurina followed his gaze and made out the dark outline of a raptor.
"A young golden eagle," he said quietly. "You can tell it's a juvenile by the white flashing in the wings and the tail. It hasn't yet acquired the coloring of the adults, but its wings are powerful. It circles — watchful, patient, with a gaze that surveys the entire valley."
Dr. Weihenruh was silent for a moment. "It does not search everywhere. Only where the waiting is worthwhile."
Flurina smiled, her expression relaxing. "Like a woman who knows she doesn't want just any specimen. But the rare one. The one that fits."
Dr. Weihenruh nodded. "And who is shrewd enough to lay the right bait only where it will be found by the right one."
A gust of wind swept through the canopy. The eagle climbed higher. They walked on; the path grew softer.
"Good. Let us assume the right co-pilot has been found," the psychotherapist continued. "Now comes the next great question. You want to raise these five young human beings in a world that is growing fragile. How do you do that?"
He looked at Flurina. "Do you build them a greenhouse to shield them from every storm? Or do you plant them like this oak here, which had to withstand every kind of weather in order to grow this strong?"
Flurina looked around the forest. She saw young beeches, shooting up tall and slender under the protection of the elders, but also gnarled pines standing alone on a rocky ledge.
"Neither," she said slowly, as the insight took shape. "A greenhouse produces weak plants that die at the first frost. But a tree that knows nothing but storms may grow hard and embittered. You need both. You need a home that is as safe as a greenhouse, where they receive unconditional love, warmth, and nourishment for the soul."
She spread her arms wide. "But from there, you must send them out again and again — into the wind. You let them climb trees and come home with scraped knees. You let them quarrel and make up on their own. You give them roots and wings."
"Beautifully put," said Dr. Weihenruh. "And now comes the decisive question, Flurina. The question of the 750,000 francs and your six years of study. Are they lost?"
"No," she said at once, with a new firmness in her voice. "No, not at all. Who, if not a trained physician, could better serve as the health minister of her own family?"
She paused briefly. "I can tell a real fever from a trifle. I can recognize pneumonia by the cough before others would even think of seeing a doctor. I can assess the mental health of my children far more accurately. My knowledge is not a lost investment. It is the best life insurance I can give my family. It is a superpower."
"A superpower," Dr. Weihenruh repeated softly, smiling with satisfaction. "So you are not trading a career for nothing. You are trading a career dictated by others — as a wage slave — for the self-determined calling of founder, CEO, health minister, and chief of security for a small, resilient tribe."
A surge of unbridled joy coursed through Flurina. The burden she had carried for months was lifted as if by magic. She was not a failure. She was a pioneer. A forest walker.
And so they followed the meandering paths and trails of the forest, exploring in conversation the possible roads for Flurina's future.
The wish to one day give five children a happy home demanded a more durable life and career plan than the illusion of finding meaning as a physician within a sick system.
When they had returned to the practice from which she had begun her walk toward her authentic self, a happy Flurina looked up at Dr. Weihenruh.
"You asked the right questions that led me to the answers I was looking for. Thank you," she said, and embraced Dr. Weihenruh, who did not let his emotion show.
When she asked how much she owed for this forest walk, he replied: "Nothing. Truly, nothing at all. Keep the money and take it as my modest investment in Switzerland's future."
And with a smile he added: "Use it to buy the first onesies."
1 Peterhans, A., Rau, S.: "Wir machten uns kaputt": Sie waren Ärzte und stiegen aus. Tagesanzeiger, Jan. 27, 2023.
2 Amsler, J.: Ärzte sprechen von «Ausbeutung» und «schädlichem Kurs». Basler Zeitung, May 9, 2023.
3 The Swiss Parliament: Menschenwürdige Arbeitsbedingungen für Assistenzärzte. Parliamentary Initiative 98.454, Dec. 18, 1998, submitted by Marc Frédéric Suter (FDP).
Dr. Friedrich Weihenruh is a literary alter ego through which the author gives narrative form to his experiences as a psychotherapist. The stories are based on true events but have been fictionalized: to protect privacy and professional confidentiality, names, locations, and details have been changed. Any resemblance to actual persons is entirely coincidental.
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