He has experienced a lot. This would fill entire books. For more than 30 years, the doctor from Dorfen was a medical companion and friend of many families. Now he's retired.
Dorfen - He has experienced a lot. This would fill entire books. As a family doctor, Dr. Erich Ertl cared for small wounds, comforted, helped people get back to health and accompanied the dying on the last way. For more than 30 years, the doctor from Dorfen was a medical companion and friend of many families. Now he's retired.
The Dorfen doctor would have liked quieter times for his farewell. But the corona pandemic does not take a doctor into account. And so there was no celebration in the medical center at the Dorfen Clinic to hand over Ertl's practice. With his successor Dr. Valandis Kantzeloglou only needs one arm or elbow salute - a handshake is not advisable in times of the corona virus.
The 66-year-old is happy that he has found a good colleague in Munich-born Kantzeloglou, who, as part of the newly founded "General Practitioners in Isental" (we reported), looked after his patients, and thus his life's work, together with Dr. Bertram Arendt continues. Kantzeloglou also has the specialty "venous medicine", so the practice has expanded its range to include vascular diagnostics (such as an examination for thrombosis) and outpatient, minimally invasive laser therapy for varicose veins.
In his more than 30-year career, Ertl has looked after patients from four generations - grandpa and grandma, father, mother and children and their children. Ertl is still a family doctor from the old school. Nightly home visits and missions were almost part of everyday life. Where the emergency doctor is alerted today, the family doctor often had to go. Ertl spent many hours at night infusing patients with asthma attacks, he recalls. Today such an attack is hardly a problem thanks to dosing sprays.
Ertl has not left his patients alone in the past few hours. "Caring for the dying at home was particularly important to me," he says. Doing this was one of the most emotional moments in his medical work.
Looking back, Ertl can also laugh a lot - about so many anecdotes. A stocky farmer's wife commented after Ertl gave her an injection in her knee: “Des hod ned heh do. The orthopedic surgeon in Rosenheim finally gave away the pain a Watschnn. I simply raised nothing more zruckhoitn kena. "And a hundred-year-old, slightly demented nun welcomed Ertl, who came to visit her at home, with the words:" Thank you for visiting, Pastor. The last oiling makes me no today.
Ertl had his best experience in a nursing home. "I stopped taking all medication for an obviously dying patient in a coma. After a week she woke up, talked, drank and ate again. A resurrection that lasted for over a year, ”says the doctor.
Ertl considers the current corona pandemic to be an extraordinary medical challenge, especially when it comes to test organization and work in the clinics. "It is important to avoid a tsunami-like spread like in China, Northern Italy, Spain and New York," he says. "Otherwise, a sudden increase in deaths cannot be avoided." The virus, Ertl is certain, will accompany us at least all year round. The times now are also a social challenge. "It demands solidarity - and hopefully it doesn't demand too many economic victims."
Anton Renner