Four young female doctors who are "growing" because of the epidemic

Close to the Madrid hospital where they brave the coronavirus in the emergency room, four young doctors live in the same apartment and calm, together, the anxieties generated by the pandemic from which they hope to come out "grown up".

It was in their tiny living room with shelves adorned with fake cacti and a large Bob Dylan record that one of them, Maria Luisa Prados, announced to the others, at the end of March: "a 28-year-old girl died of Coronavirus, she was a family doctor in a health center like us. "

"I felt a lot of anxiety at first. I even had injuries to my hands from washing them," said another roommate, Lourdes Ramos, who was tested by the daily monitoring of "patients who are progressing well.", then, overnight, can plunge into a serious state. "

Maria Luisa and Lourdes are 29 years old. Ana and Cristina one year less.

Their neighbors who, each evening, pay tribute to the caregivers by applauding, ignore that these four women posted at a window are doctors at the end of their studies, capable of going to work at 8:00 am in a health center and then continuing with an emergency guard at the neighboring hospital, until 8:00 the next morning.

All of them have long hair and a great attachment to their regions of origin, Andalusia and the Canaries. Three will soon complete their studies in "family and community medicine" and had planned to celebrate this in April in Vietnam.

But on March 3, the first death from the coronavirus was announced in the country and the epidemic has killed more than 25,000 people since.

"Not immortal"

Like other Madrid hospitals, the Gregorio Marañon was overwhelmed. "I will not forget March 24," said Ana Rubio, her face eaten by her brown hair, her glasses and a surgical mask.

"You put on personal protective equipment and you entered the + coronavirus zone, which was actually the whole hospital. All the hallways were filled with patients, patients, patients. Many people had been waiting for a bed for 48 hours while sleeping on chairs".

As she spoke, Ana relived the feeling of utter helplessness that had seized her - "someone can die now and I wouldn't even know it" - even if "the guards got better then and we started to understand how the virus worked. "

The peak of the epidemic was reached in this hospital on April 1, with more than a thousand patients admitted for coronavirus including 112 in intensive care, she said.

The four interns - including three daughters of doctors - then discovered all the shortcomings of the health system but also their own fragility.

"This experience will help us grow as doctors, to value life in another way," says Ana, who adds twice: "We are not immortal ...".

"Therapy with friends"

At the end of the huge hallway of the apartment, Maria Luisa Prados negligently points to the bathtub in an abandoned bathroom where the tunics worn at the Health Center pile up, to be washed at 90 degrees.

Each remains fairly discreet about the hardest situations they have experienced.

But Maria Luisa was marked by the suffering felt by other colleagues who, at the height of the crisis, when the ventilators were lacking, were forced to refuse the entry of certain patients into the intensive care unit ...

They sometimes cried themselves after announcing bad news to relatives of patients, especially all those who at first "could not enter the coronavirus area for a last farewell" to a dying person, which was authorized later, says Cristina Rios.

Three of them were automatically sent to work in the field hospital of the Madrid Exhibition Center.

From this place designed to treat the least serious cases, they emerged galvanized by the spirit of "camaraderie" and "the joy" of having finally seen hundreds of patients who were cured and grateful.

Their families are far away, their boyfriends inaccessible during confinement.

They fear a future revival of the epidemic and that the field hospital, closed on May 1, will be forced to reopen.

But these cheerful young women have made an unwritten pact: not to let the virus invade their entire lives.

So Maria Luisa practices contemporary dance, Lourdes draws in her notebooks, Ana lifts dumbbells and Cristina takes guitar lessons online.

They crowd in the living room to chat, play cards, swing or zumba, and share the dishes simmered by Ana. When Cristina plays folk songs on guitar, the others accompany her with a piano keyboard and two ukuleles.

"It's a bit like therapy with friends," concludes Ana. "Our therapy, through music, laughter, dance ...".