I’m leaving Italy». With this sentence the so-called “brain drain” (mainly researchers, scholars and junior doctors) decide to go along with the desire to live in a country where value and expertise are promoted despite intercessions and bureaucracy. Unfortunately it is an increasing problem, because the offer is often more tempting elsewhere: better working conditions plus higher salaries. These countries, Great Britain in primis, recognize and make the best use of the Italian young employees. As an example, this is Pierluigi Vergara’s case, the youngest UK neurosurgeon head physician, Consultant at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge: «If I’d stayed in Naples, I wouldn’t have started yet. Now I’m 35, I perform 200 operations per year, I have independent surgery lists, I manage clinics and interns with great responsibility. In addition, I like the climate of confidence between doctors and patients, without the sword of Damocles of complaints my colleagues in Italy are forced to live with».
Simone Speggiorin, him as well, is the youngest pediatric heart surgeon in UK working at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester: internationally renowned, he has its own operating theatre, his patients and a team which supports him. «I’m not a hero, I’m only one of many who left because Italy is not a country for young people» says Speggiorin. «Among my friends there is Paolo De Coppi, the 41 years old scientist who discovered stem cells in the amniotic fluid, and he works in London too». Another “Italian brain drain” is Massimo Rivolo, a nurse emigrated to Great Britain, who now works at the clinic “Healogics” as Tissue Viability Nurse Consultant. Doctor Rivolo was recently awarded the JWC award – in the category Wound Assessment and Diagnostic -, an international recognition for healthcare excellence in the field of wound care. First Italian among the winners, Massimo Rivolo dedicated the prestigious and coveted prize to Italy, the country that failed to exploit its own excellence.
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