EMILĖ: We study in the same course, traveling to Kaunas to visit our parents. Today we graduated.
ELENA: We both live in Vilnius and we accidentally met at the railway station. We studied medicine for six years. Four to seven years of residency studies await, here we will already receive some kind of salary.
EMILĖ: I still feel like I’m standing still – my friends are working and making money, building lives. And I still can’t to this. But soon everything will change.
ELENA: Do you believe in a calling?
EMILĖ: Not really, depends on stubbornness. How much effort you put in. How much psychological strength you have. It doesn’t light up in one day. When you start studying, you don’t really know what to expect. You only realize where you are when you start.
ELENA: My future plans? To be a good person! Wherever I am, whatever I study, it will be fine there.
EMILĖ: The most important thing is to maintain respect for patients and be respected by people. It would be good if you had enough strength and desire to constantly delve deeper and be interested in your field.
ELENA: As we were just talking about, today is the last day to choose a residency.
EMILĖ: I’ve made up my mind. I choose anesthesiology and resuscitation.
ELENA: I have already changed my choice 3 times in 24 hours. And I still have 12 hours. There is some time, then I will have to submit the documents! It is a matter of luck where you will be able to access – what is the competition like this year, where are others applying. There are popular and not so popular fields of studies, they change from year to year.
EMILĖ: Lithuania is in the first place for me. If it doesn’t work here, maybe I’ll try to access elsewhere. We can always change the path. When you don’t know how it is elsewhere, you can’t evaluate and compare it to how it is here.
ELENA: I would go to Germany for a few years because I speak German. To finish residency, broaden my horizons. But I see the future in Lithuania. I would like to be here. Lithuania is closer to my heart, no matter how strange the system is.
